Derbyshire’s newly formed Breathing Apparatus (BA) Team has received sponsorship from Crofton Engineering, to gain entry into the National Breathing Apparatus Challenge taking place at the National Fire Service College on Saturday 6th October 2018.
Five operational instructors, based at the Service’s Joint Training Facility in Ripley, will be taking part in their first ever BA Challenge. Teams from fire and rescue services from across the whole of the UK will be competing, demonstrating their skills, knowledge and response to a wide range of live fire scenarios, whilst being assessed by specialist judges from the fire and rescue industry.
Whilst the Service already has an Extrication and Trauma Team who have successfully competed at the highest level, BA competition is a new addition to the Service.
Speaking ahead of the weekend’s events, Operational Training Station Manager, Simon Abbs said: “The team is really looking forward to the BA Challenge and having the opportunity to pit their skills and expertise against other specialists from across the UK.
“The competition allows us to share best practice with colleagues from other fire and rescue service’s and explore any opportunities to improve our response to emergency situations. Thanks to Crofton Engineering, the BA team have been able to make the journey to Moreton-in-Marsh, the home of the Fire Service College, where they will be credible entrants into this year’s competition.”
Crofton Engineering are the suppliers of many of the specialist training facilities at Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service’s joint police and fire training centre, opened in January 2018.
Glen Godfrey, Director of Crofton Engineering said: “It has been a pleasure working with Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service to develop the comprehensive new live fire training facility at Ripley. We wish their BA Team the best of luck for Saturday’s challenge.”
Crofton Engineering equipped the new joint training facility with several different carbonaceous fire behaviour training units, configured and customised to cater for a wide variety of carbonaceous fire training scenarios. The units include a 12-metre-long Attack Unit, a 12m Demonstration Unit, a 6m Window Unit, a Timber Store and a Multi-Storey Grid Unit. The Multi-Storey Unit has been designed to simulate a domestic dwelling and a commercial space. Its features include a single storey garage with a pitched roof, live fire areas on all floors, two internal and one external staircase, a dry riser unit, an artificial smoke machine with ducting to all rooms and a mixture of steel, uPVC and timber doors and windows.
You can follow the team at the competition by visiting the Service’s Twitter and Facebook accounts on Saturday 6th October 2018. @DerbyshireFRS
Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service has a number of sponsorship opportunities available.
For more information on Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service please visit: www.derbys-fire.gov.uk/sponsorship/
For more information on Crofton Engineering please visit: www.crofton-eng.co.uk
