The 5 August 2011 saw the start of three days of rioting and civil unrest in London resulting in a number of fires and other incidents across the capital over the three-day period. London Fire Brigade’s operational response was fully tested at all levels. What did we learn from these events?
Ten years ago saw the beginning of a difficult, but mercifully short, period in London’s history with civil unrest on the streets. I still have vivid memories of the events and my involvement.
I had experienced civil unrest as a firefighter earlier in my career in 1985 in Brixton. Trying to put out fires whilst people were throwing bricks, bottles and anything else they could find at us was an experience I hoped I’d never undergo again.
In 2011 it started in Tottenham on Saturday, 6 August, following the fatal shooting of a man the day before by armed police. The mood in the area grew steadily worse until on Saturday night it descended into ugly scenes with numerous fires started over an area about a mile long. I was off duty that weekend but was alerted to it and kept myself informed via television and my Fire Service personal radio. The fires raged well into Sunday morning.
Sunday daytime was relatively peaceful until disorder again broke out that evening in Tottenham and in Brixton in south-west London.
Monday dawned and I was back at work spending most of the day in meetings and making phone calls to colleagues in the other emergency services, trying to keep my situational awareness up as well as gather intelligence about the likelihood of further unrest. This was part of my remit as Head of Special Operations Group in London Fire Brigade and I had very good working relationships with the Met Police, London Ambulance Service and Local Authority colleagues in London as well as with colleagues in government departments. The feeling was that the civil unrest was likely to continue.
I had an excellent team around me and between us we made sure that we were well informed and were prepared to deal with further incidents if they arose. By late afternoon that day, unrest and rioting had also broken out in Hackney and Peckham (east and south-east London respectively).
A couple of Fire Service Officer colleagues had had their cars damaged by rioters pelting them when they arrived on scene – neither were hurt but it served as a reminder to everyone about the dangers ahead. I went home that evening and ate dinner whilst watching events unfolding on TV. I kept in constant contact with my team and other emergency service colleagues and knew that it was going to be a testing evening.
The priorities were: public and responder safety, prevention of fire spread and assisting in a return to normality – and in just about every phone call I had, I either verbally or mentally ticked each of these off. These priorities were my framework for decision making.
I was watching the unrest unfolding when I was ordered to take charge of a large fire in a furniture store at Reeves Corner in Croydon. I contacted the control room, got a brief about the incident and asked for all the other officers attending to meet me at the nearby fire station before attending the incident. I wanted to get everyone to a safe place for a quick brief before travelling together to the actual scene in one vehicle. I also decided to change out of my fire service uniform (white shirt and black trousers) and into a t-shirt and jeans and carry my Fire Service ID card.
On the way to the rendezvous point, I was stopped by an armed police officer who told me to make a detour as there was an armed suspect in the locality I was driving through. Although this particular incident had nothing to do with the riots, it only served to heighten my awareness of the threat that we might face.
We arrived at the scene where there was a very serious fire in progress; it was eerily quiet apart from the noise of fire service pumps. As incident commander I had two priorities: safety of the public and responders and preventing further fire spread. The initial crews had performed magnificently, rescuing a number of people from nearby properties and searching others to make sure that no one was left in any danger. Firefighting jets and sprays were used to protect nearby buildings catching fire from radiated heat. We knew that the place where the fire started was lost as the fire had got a firm hold and the whole building was alight. By normal standards the incident was under-resourced, just eight pumps when we needed double that number and, without a Command Unit, I had to command using very basic methods – my senses, my personal radio and my pointing finger. It was quite liberating in a strange sort of way.
The police did an outstanding job of protecting us – I had a public-order cop with me initially and he kept me informed from the police perspective.
We were starting to make headway with the firefighting, when the police officer informed me that he had to withdraw the public-order team protecting us as they were needed elsewhere in Croydon. The rioters were using mobile phones to communicate with each other and moving around in small gangs to loot shops and start fires.
The cop managed to get some police officers to protect us, but they had little protection themselves. I decided to park the fire appliances across all the access roads to the scene so that we had some physical safety in place to protect the responders.
I was in constant communication with the strategic command team from London Fire Brigade who were giving me a London-wide overview of incidents and resources. A significant fire was in progress at a warehouse in Enfield and the disorder was spreading very quickly to other parts of London.
By now, my mobile phone was in meltdown – I had already recharged it once and I now had to use my spare battery – I had learned from previous experience that these are the little things that can catch you out in a crisis. I needed my communications, but I simply couldn’t service all the calls I was receiving so I only made and received calls when necessary.
Once all the public had been rescued/evacuated and the fires were under control, I downgraded the incident, handed it over to another officer and left.
I was immediately ordered to attend another large fire, this time in Clapham. I didn’t use my blue light and two-tone horns until well away from any unrest so nobody noticed a guy in a t-shirt and jeans driving through Croydon and I was untroubled.
Despite everything that was happening, the areas outside the rioting were very quiet and I was able to switch on my lights and sirens and make good progress – turning them off again once I was within a mile of the scene.
The fire was in a terraced row of four-storey buildings – shops on the ground floor with flats above – and it was spreading quickly. Firefighters were again undertaking rescues and evacuating the public and there was some water from an aerial appliance preventing lateral fire spread at roof level to one side with water jets deployed on the other side preventing lateral spread.
This time I did have a Command Unit on site so I ran the incident from there supported by an excellent command team and outstanding firefighters.
Once again the resources were well below the number we would usually have had for this incident had it occurred during normal circumstances. The firefighters made great progress with the search and rescue of people in the flats above the shops. However, the fire was still spreading.
I was contacted by the strategic command team and asked to release some firefighters and fire appliances as London Fire Brigade resources were beginning to get stretched.
I was concerned that the situation at my incident was not yet under control so I asked for a grace period of an hour so that I could alter the plan and then release some crews – this was agreed. My command team worked with me to produce a new plan, which we put into place and duly released the resources.
The rioting in Clapham was not as extensive as it was in Croydon so there more police were available to protect us. We held very brief multi-agency meetings with police and ambulance crews every hour covering off those three strategic priorities and assessing what resources we needed over the coming hour.
Once we had confirmed that all the people in the flats were safe and the fire was under control, I handed over command and was ordered to another fire in Croydon.
This time we had a whole terraced row of shops and flats alight, but fortunately all the people had evacuated and were safe.
One fire appliance had been attacked and damaged, one firefighter had sustained minor injuries – this did not deter the crews and they continued in their efforts to prevent the fire from spreading further.
By now the firefighters and officers were weary and their safety became my top priority – all the firefighting took place from outside as there had been a partial collapse of the building. I ordered some relief crews and officers in, though no one on duty that night had had any real rest.
Once the relief crews were in place and the external firefighting plan was actioned, it was finally a chance for me to catch my breath and I realised how tired I was (it was around 7am on Tuesday morning by now I had been awake and working since 6am the previous day).
I requested my replacement to attend after the new shift had started at 8am.
I was approached by a BBC reporter asking for a live interview. My key message was that the emergency services in London work well together and had well-rehearsed plans for these types of incidents.
Key takeaways
- Preparation Knowing your policies and procedures and developing a good working relationship with colleagues within your service as well as partner agencies and stakeholders. We had excellent strategic response arrangements and these helped to ensure that actions on the incident ground were in line with strategic objectives and resources available.
- Train, train, train High-quality training is essential to ensuring preparedness at all levels – don’t learn to dance on your way to the ball.
- Make communications work for you A balance between communicating with the right people at the right time and not getting overloaded, especially when there is no Command Unit to assist in filtering. Keep communications concise and to the point.
For more information, contact info@berniehiggins.co.uk
About the Author
Bernie Higgins is a vastly experienced former Principal Fire Service Officer having retired from the London Fire Brigade in December 2012 after 34 years’ service. He received two commendations during his career and now runs his own consultancy business offering leadership and personal development training to organisations and individuals.
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