Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 25/02/2009 12:10

Cornwall County Fire Brigade and staff from Port Eliot House in St Germans staged an exercise on Sunday to test the effectiveness of the Port Eliot fire plan.

The exercise, running from 10am to 12pm, involved around 35 firefighters from stations at Saltash, Torpoint, Looe and Lostwithiel, as well as officers and Port Eliot staff members. The majority of crew present were retained firefighters, working in their spare time to complete the exercise. Crews at Polruan were on hand to cover any real life emergencies should they occur.

Speaking of the exercise, Assistant Area Manager Dave King said, “The scenario we were using was that whilst two workmen were inside the building, smoke had started to appear. The workmen were unaccounted for and Port Eliot staff dialled 999 for the Fire Brigade. We had set up the exercise with Fire Control so that a live call did actually happen and an incident log was taken just as it would be in real life.”

The exercise took place at low tide, to fully test the effectiveness of using water from open water sources at the stately home. Crews were sent in to fight the fire, rescue the workmen and retrieve items of value. A water relay was also set up from the river to provide water supplies to the jets being used to fight the fire.

“The exercise went extremely well” said Dave King. “We are lucky to have a great deal of heritage sites in Cornwall, with several stately homes in the East of the county and it’s so important for us to fully test the resources we have. In carrying out this exercise we have established that even at low tide we can get essential water supplies up to Port Eliot House. We also tested the effectiveness of new equipment such as high volume pumps at the site and are now able to add these to our equipment roster for fire fighting at Port Eliot.”

Lord St Germans commented, “We were delighted to be able to help Cornwall County Fire Brigade with the exercise and we were all impressed by their speed and efficiency. We obviously have a unique property here and as a result of the exercise have learned some valuable lessons. We will also be making some alterations to our procedures so that we are more than adequately prepared, should an emergency ever occur.”

Ken Yeo (Lib Dem), the Council’s Executive Member for Public Protection added, “The value of exercises of this nature are so important as part of training for the fire service, and I’m pleased to hear how well the day went. My thanks go to the crews and Port Eliot staff who worked so well together to ensure an effective exercise was carried out.

“Lessons learnt from this exercise will also help to inform and better prepare fire fighters across Cornwall’s fire service to deal with incidents in the many heritage properties around the county.”