There were no fire engines available on the Isle of Wight for a short time yesterday, as all four crews covering the Island were called out to incidents.
A pump from Hampshire had to be called across the Solent between 11am and 12.30pm to provide extra support.
Retained crew were also placed on standby should another incident have occurred before full-time staff returned to the station.
However, the Isle of Wight Council said it continued to monitor safe levels of emergency response on the Island.
Watts: All required to attend incidents
Senior fire officer, Howard Watts, said:
“This approach enables us to utilise the cover we have available in the most effective way.
“Yesterday (Monday), we had four pumps available throughout the morning and for a short time all were required to attend incidents.
“We brought one pump over from Hampshire, between 11am and 12.30pm — something we, and all other fire and rescue services do, if it’s necessary.
“We could have also asked our on-call firefighters to provide back up cover as we had around 30 available across the Island.
“However, we did not have to call on them because the full-time crews became available very quickly.”
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may be been made by OnTheWight. Ed
