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The picture shows the crew levels for every whole time SFRS station, days 13th & 14th July.
Only Godstone and Leatherhead have enough to be on the run both shifts.
An intake of 12 recruits in May has had no effect of staffing as they are so short due to budget cuts and underfunding.
This is not unusal for SFRS as routinely stations (even with special appliances or skills) are shut due to staff shortages, cover is often from the other side of the county or from other brigades.
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A comment from the 'unofficial' Staines Fire Station Facebook page on the graphic above (but the graphic is below on their posting) :-
** SAFETY ALERT ** **PLEASE SHARE **
Below is a screenshot of the crewing levels for every Wholetime Surrey Fire & Rescue Fire Station for this weekends day shifts (13th & 14th)
The only Fire Engines with enough Firefighters to crew them are shown in green, Godstone & Leatherhead, & Sunbury for Sunday. The numbers represent how many firefighters are on duty. Woking, Guildford & Camberley should all show a minimum of 8 ( two fire engine stations ), the rest should show a minimum of 4.
Bearing bin mind 12 new recruits hit stations the first week of May, this shows the dire straights the service is in. We have another 24 recruits going through training school as I type, but by the time they hit stations, nearly that amount will have retired or left having zero impact.
From the picture below, the Assistant Group Commander on duty will have the headache of deciding which multiple stations to close for both shifts, sending the remaining firefighters to other locations around the county to prop them up. We are all in this together and the firefighters on stations to not envy the officers having to make those decisions, as it’s no fault of there own.
In addition to that, our control members have an absolute nightmare managing resources and moving Fire Engines around the county, ensuring they maintain the best possible cover for the whole of the county, most of the time whilst they are under crewed too!!
This isn’t a one off, this a daily occurrence, both on day shifts, & nights.
This is down to year upon year of budget cuts and that alone.
Firefighters will turn up and give you their all, as always, whether it’s a Road Traffic Collision, Fire, Rescue from Height, Water Rescue, assisting other blue light services, Hazardous Material incidents etc etc, but who knows where your nearest fire engine will be coming from and when it will turn up. You’d have to ask your crystal ball.
