Crews adapt to tackle wildfire and flood 'extremes'

A senior fire officer believes her firefighters are now in a cycle of dealing with wildfires and floods.

Anna Morris Jones, a group manager at Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, was involved in coordinating its wildfire response over the summer which she described as "quite traumatic".

She said it appeared as a result of climate change, "we have two extremes, the wildfires in the summer and then the flooding in the winter".

As a result, she said they were now in a situation where they were giving out wildfire advice while dealing with serious flooding.

Morris Jones said: "We're really starting some of our preparedness and prevention messages from almost from January, February, onwards, which I know sounds sometimes silly when we're in the depth of winter."

She is a wildfire support officer for the fire service and was involved in helping neighbouring services over the summer.

That put an extra strain on her own resources.

"We had an enormous amount of fires as well and we do help our cross border colleagues," she said.

"But that day we had numerous calls of our own that we were dealing with."

The fires across the West Midlands caused widespread damage and affected dozens of homes.

Morris Jones said it had been "unprecedented" and she had not dealt with wildfires that serious before.

There have been calls to give fire services more resources to deal with wildfires and for a change in focus to help the country prepare for them.

West Midlands chief fire officer Simon Tuhill has called for more specialist resources to fight wildfires, such as 4x4 vehicles and aerial firefighting capability.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said leaders should be "better prepared next time" and said a summit would be held in the coming weeks.

"We shouldn't live through another summer like the one that we just have," Burnham said.

Morris Jones said: "I think we're doing all we can.

"We need more equipment, training and the expertise that go alongside that."

One strategy, Shropshire Fire Service has adopted is to work more closely with farmers and landowners who Morris Jones said had been "absolutely amazing this summer in helping us".

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