Letters | 17 September 2015

What firefighters do

Sir: Leo McKinstry’s vicious, misleading article ‘Out of the ashes’ (12 September) shows that he has no understanding of the real issues facing firefighters today. He implies firefighters sit around doing nothing while other emergency services are doing the real work. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Firefighters rescue more than 38,000 people every year, working regularly with paramedics, ambulance staff and police. There has been reluctance in the past from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) to sanction firefighters stepping in to help with medical rescues as a matter of course, since such moves need to be made carefully, with assurances that proper training will be given and equipment issued so that no lives are put at risk. But it may interest Leo McKinstry to know that the invitation for these talks about wider ways of working came from the FBU.

It is (in part) the work of firefighters themselves that has meant fewer fires, thanks to the educational and prevention work they do in schools and communities. But there are still fires, and response times are getting longer due to cuts and fire station closures. This isn’t scaremongering — it’s the worrying truth. When they aren’t putting out fires or helping to bring down the incidence of fire, firefighters are rescuing people from lifts, cutting them out of road traffic collisions, helping contain chemical spillages and — thankfully rarely — carrying out rescues at terrorist incidents such as 7/7. To suggest that skilled, professional firefighters earning £29,054 are somehow overpaid shows a deep misunderstanding of what it is that firefighters actually do and what they are worth. The public recognise their worth — it is perplexing that Mr McKinstry can’t.
Matt Wrack, FBU General Secretary

Kingston, London