Climate change is increasingly one of the biggest challenges facing fire and rescue services across the country. In Warwickshire, more extreme weather events impact directly on the type and frequency of incidents, such as flooding and wildfires.
The National Fire Chief’s Council role is to ensure that each Service is supported to make decisions on how to respond to the challenges of climate change. As one of the two newly appointed Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change leads, Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service’s Chief Fire Officer Ben Brook is involved in developing a toolkit that will provide a range of data and information to each fire and rescue service across the county and give them ways to evaluate the environmental impact of their activity.
Ben’s role is closely linked to the wider ambitions of Warwickshire to reduce carbon emissions. As part of Warwickshire County Council, Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service (WFRS) has pledged to become net zero by 2030. To do this, they have focused on transport and heating as the two areas that create the largest proportion of emissions. This includes replacing an old gas boiler system with an air heat pump at Bedworth Fire Station and introducing electric vehicles into their fleet.
Chief Fire Officer Ben Brook explains: ‘We’d love to go further and replace many of our fire appliances with electric or hydrogen powered vehicles. Unfortunately, the technology isn’t quite there yet for those, but we’re monitoring it and will be taking the opportunity to trial them as soon as we can. In the meantime, we’re continuing to work to prevent climate-related and other incidents in the first place, protect Warwickshire residents when they do and respond when they need us most.’
Warwickshire County Council Portfolio Holder for Fire and Rescue and Community Safety Cllr Andy Crump added: ‘It’s great to have Ben at the forefront of the national debate about climate change mitigation and adaptation within fire and rescue services. Climate change directly impacts the type of incidents they respond to, but we do have some control over the way in which they respond. Our role is to ensure that Warwickshire is a safe place for people to live and work now, but also well into the future.’
Watch CFO Ben Brook talk about his NFCC role and how WFRS is responding to climate change:
