Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 07/03/2008 12:27

Cornwall County Fire Brigade and the National Trust are staging a joint exercise at St Michael's Mount on Sunday, March 9th to test the effectiveness of the St Michael's Mount Fire plan.

The exercise will involve approximately 45 fire fighters from stations at Penzance, St Just, St Ives, Camborne and Helston and the Incident Command Unit from Truro, 10 Fire Brigade observers, together with staff from the National Trust and St Michael's Mount.

"The island location of St Michael's Mount creates some unique problems when it comes to dealing with a serious fire" explained Divisional Commander Mark Boeck. "These include actually transporting fire appliances over to the island if the tide is in, and the logistics of then getting fire crews, equipment and water supplies up the steep, cobbled path to the castle at the top of the hill".

"Cornwall County Fire Brigade has been working closely with both the National Trust, the St Aubyn family and staff at St Michael's Mount to develop an effective Fire plan which identifies ways of overcoming these problems and this is what we will be testing on Sunday".

The exercise, which will run from 11 am to 2pm, will be based around the scenario of a fire in the historic castle building which is sited at the top of the hill. Public access to the Mount will be restricted during this time.

It will take place at low tide, enabling the Brigade to test the practicalities of transporting two fire appliances and a large number of fire fighters across to the island. Fire crews will then set up safe systems of work, including the Incident Command Unit, test the effectiveness of water supplies and try out different methods of transporting equipment to the top of the hill.

"Events such as the fire in Windsor Castle have shown the importance of having a clear plan to deal with an incident in a historic building " said Mark Boeck. "St Michael's Mount is one of Cornwall's most historic and popular places and it is essential that we have an effective plan in place to protect it from the possibility of a fire ".

Ken Yeo (Lib Dem), the Council's Executive Member for Public Protection said: "The value of exercises of this nature are an important part of training for the Fire Service, not only will it give reassurance to the Residents on St Michaels Mount that should an incident occur it will have plans and procedures in place to deal with the situation. "

"Lessons learnt from this exercise will also help to inform and better prepare fire fighters across the Cornwall Fire Service to deal with incidents in difficult and hard to reach locations."