The Fire Sector Summit 2019 Review

29 November 2019

Opening this year’s London event in November, the FPA’s managing director Jonathan O’Neill remarked that the recommendations in the recent Grenfell Tower public inquiry first phase report were ‘much in line with expectations’, but added that the observations on fire and rescue service (FRS) management failures had ‘caused the greatest stir’. Nonetheless, the FRS should see them not as an attack but an opportunity to show it listens and learns, recognise changing risk profiles and ‘demand the resources to sort this out’. He called on those in power to review building regulations; mandate third party certification; ban single staircase escapes in tall buildings; install sprinklers and high integrity detection and evacuation measures; and ban combustible materials in every high risk occupancy. ‘This isn’t rocket science, so get on with it immediately please,’ he urged.