Praise for Kent Fire and Rescue Staff
- By Chief Editor
- Published 17 Sep 2008
- Kent
- Unrated
Kent Fire and Rescue Service’s Chief Fire Officer is writing to the hundreds of staff involved with last week’s Channel Tunnel fire, to thank them for their professionalism and skill in dealing with the 21 hour incident.
KFRS Control Room operators received their first call to the site at 2.57pm on Thursday 11 September after a fire alarm was triggered. At the height of the blaze, more than 20 appliances and over 100 firefighters were at the scene but KFRS’s involvement continued until midday on Friday which meant dozens of different teams from all over the county were involved.
The KFRS stations which attended the fire included: the Channel Tunnel, Ashford, Wye, Aldington, Dover, St Margarets, Folkestone, New Romney, Hythe, Dymchurch, Lydd, Cranbrook, Hawkhurst, Horton Kirby, Hoo, Strood, Chatham, Medway, Sittingbourne, Eastchurch, Maidstone, Lenham, Headcorn, Borough Gre
en, Sevenoaks, Paddock Wood, Tunbridge Wells, Southborough, Canterbury, Aylesham, Sturry, Wingham, Faversham, Whitstable, Whitfield, Eastry, Teynham, Margate, Deal.
KFRS Chief Fire Officer Bill Feeley said: “Hundreds of our staff were involved in dealing with this incident; either at the fire itself, in the Incident Command Centre or the Major Incident Room, in our Control Centre or at Gold Command with a number of other agencies. I know many others were involved in standby moves and generally assisting the maintenance of a normal Service whilst all of this was going on.
“Once again we have been tested in dealing with a major operational incident and I am both delighted and proud to say that our staff coped magnificently well. This was a tremendously difficult job carried out extremely well by all involved and I thank them for their efforts.”
KFRS is supporting its French counterparts in their investigation into the cause of the blaze.
KFRS Control Room operators received their first call to the site at 2.57pm on Thursday 11 September after a fire alarm was triggered. At the height of the blaze, more than 20 appliances and over 100 firefighters were at the scene but KFRS’s involvement continued until midday on Friday which meant dozens of different teams from all over the county were involved.
The KFRS stations which attended the fire included: the Channel Tunnel, Ashford, Wye, Aldington, Dover, St Margarets, Folkestone, New Romney, Hythe, Dymchurch, Lydd, Cranbrook, Hawkhurst, Horton Kirby, Hoo, Strood, Chatham, Medway, Sittingbourne, Eastchurch, Maidstone, Lenham, Headcorn, Borough Gre
KFRS Chief Fire Officer Bill Feeley said: “Hundreds of our staff were involved in dealing with this incident; either at the fire itself, in the Incident Command Centre or the Major Incident Room, in our Control Centre or at Gold Command with a number of other agencies. I know many others were involved in standby moves and generally assisting the maintenance of a normal Service whilst all of this was going on.
“Once again we have been tested in dealing with a major operational incident and I am both delighted and proud to say that our staff coped magnificently well. This was a tremendously difficult job carried out extremely well by all involved and I thank them for their efforts.”
KFRS is supporting its French counterparts in their investigation into the cause of the blaze.