Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 20/04/2006 14:00

Senior Divisional Officer Mervyn Kettle, on secondment from Cornwall County Fire Brigade, is one of the key figures at the launch of the Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG) at Dover Maritime and Rescue Co-ordination Centre today (Thursday 20 April 2006).

Mervyn Kettle was seconded onto the Maritime and Coastguard Agency project as Project Manager in January 2002 to develop the national strategy for the UK Fire Service response to maritime incidents.

Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG) is the first specialised fire and rescue service for incidents at sea. MIRG comprises approximately 50 firefighters in each of the fifteen teams strategically located in Fire and Rescue Service Authorities around the country. Each of these teams has been specially trained for the particular challenges of tackling fire in the marine environment and are equipped with the lighter, more compact equipment required when travelling by helicopter to the scene of an incident.

For many years Cornwall County Fire Brigade has been one of the lead Fire Brigades in relation to the national approach of offshore ship firefighting. Due to Falmouth’s unique position it has, as a port, provided refuge for vessels in distress for over one hundred years. Cornwall County Fire Brigade has provided an offshore firefighting response for vessels in distress for humanitarian, commercial and ecological reasons for more than fifty of those years.
Chief Fire Officers and Senior Officer’s from Cornwall County Fire Brigade have provided input and advice to Government Departments in order to achieve effective and efficient arrangements for responding to emergencies at sea. As a result of this expertise Mervyn Kettle was selected for secondment to the MIRG project.

Mervyn Kettle explains: “I have been working with many key people over the last four years to bring together this specialised training, one of the first of its kind in the world”

He cont: “Firefighters and paramedics will now be trained to deal with this unique type of emergency, which involves helicopter transportation. An intense training programme for Cornwall County Fire Brigade’s firefighters has already begun”.

This cross-governmental project has been supported by almost £3m of funding from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Department of Transport.

Cornwall County Fire Brigade is again promoting the expertise of its officers in a national project.