A team of fire safety inspectors is embarking on an ambitious project to inspect all high-rise residential buildings across South Yorkshire, over 18 metres or with six or more storeys, by the end of next year.

This comes as part of a Government-driven ‘Building Risk Review’ programme that seeks to ‘significantly increase’ the pace of high-rise residential inspection activity across the country.

Made up of staff from South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s (SYFR) business safety department, the specialist team has been funded by a specific Government grant.

As part of their work, the team will be contacting the responsible person for each high-rise residential building across South Yorkshire to arrange an inspection to assess the fire safety measures in place.

“Our aim, between now and the end of next year, is to physically inspect every high rise residential building in South Yorkshire,” said SYFR Area Manager, Simon Dunker, who is head of the service’s prevention and protection departments.

“We hope this work will provide reassurance to residents we are continuing to work to effect changes identified by the Grenfell inquiry and that resident safety remains our priority. We will work with building owners and managers to ensure any necessary work is carried out.”

Whilst this project is specifically targeted at residential buildings over 18 metres in height or with six or more storeys, inspectors are keen to stress all responsible persons should ensure they are fully aware of their fire safety responsibilities.

The service’s inspection officers, who are not directly involved in this project, will continue to inspect all buildings across South Yorkshire regardless of height.

Further information about the Building Risk Review project, and your fire safety responsibilities, can be found at www.syfire.gov.uk/business-advice.

The fire service’s recovery from flooding which hit South Yorkshire last autumn has been recognised with a major international award.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue was awarded ‘Most Effective Recovery’ at the Business Continuity Institute’s Global Awards.

The award- presented to the service’s Resilience, Planning and Contingencies team at a virtual ceremony- recognises organisations which have effectively managed major incidents.

The fire service rescued more than 300 people and pumped away an estimated 363 million litres of flood water when heavy rainfall caused severe flooding in parts of Sheffield, Doncaster and Rotherham in November 2019.

It also coordinated the efforts of fire and rescue services and other agencies who arrived from all over the UK to support the local effort.

Area Manager Stewart Nicholson, said: “The flooding which devastated so many parts of our county in 2019 will live long in the memory for many people and sadly it continues to affect the lives of those who were most severely affected. However, we are pleased that our work to plan for, respond to and ultimately recover from such an event has been acknowledged in this way. It provides much needed recognition to our staff who work so hard behind the scenes.”

The BCI Awards honour business continuity and resilience professionals and organizations worldwide. The global awards are the most prestigious event in the business continuity calendar.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue represented Europe, overcoming competition from organisations from five other regions to win the award.

A Sheffield building owner has been fined after obstructing the work of fire safety inspectors.

Mr Gunes Ata, trading as Noble Design & Build, was found guilty by Sheffield Magistrates Court of failing, without reasonable excuse, to comply with requirements imposed by an inspector from South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue.

Mr Ata did not attend the hearing on Wednesday (18 November) and did not enter a plea, but the court heard the case in his absence.

Evidence presented by the fire service showed that Mr Ata had failed to provide information relating to the external cladding of one of his buildings within the timescales requested by inspectors. This information was later provided and the cladding in question at London Court on Beeley Street was removed.

The Court ordered Mr Ata be fined £660, to pay a victims surcharge of £66 and to pay full costs of £1177.

Area Manager Simon Dunker, said: “Fire safety laws are designed to keep people safe- nothing more, nothing less. Whilst our building safety inspectors always try to engage positively with building owners and responsible persons, we will also make no hesitation in prosecuting those who persistently obstruct our work.”

For more information on business fire safety laws, visit www.syfire.gov.uk/business-advice

There’s just over two weeks left for people to have their say on draft plans published by South Yorkshire’s fire service – including proposals for how quickly it should respond to different types of emergency.

Have your say here

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue says it will still aim to attend every single 999 call as quickly as it possibly can, but that having a set of published response times will make it more accountable to local people, help it to improve its service and bring them in line with most other services around the country.

Currently the service simply aims to get to all emergencies as fast as it can, every time. A national inspection reported that it was undesirable for the service not to have a set of response standards.

The proposed new response time arrangements will take into account whether a person’s life is at risk, as well as the level of risk in different parts of the county based on historical incident data and other information.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Chris Kirby said: “Adopting a more risk based approach allows us to ensure we are placing resources in the right places at the right time to best protect the communities we serve. This includes the work we do around preventing fires, protecting buildings and responding to incidents when they do occur.

“We will still aim to get to each emergency as fast as we can, but having a set of response times means we can measure our performance to ensure we are delivering the best possible service to our communities with the resources we have available to us.”

The response time proposals follow initial consultation with more than 3,000 local people and a thorough analysis of the different risks faced by the fire service in South Yorkshire.

They form part of the service’s latest draft ‘Integrated Risk Management Plan’. This is a plan which explains the different risks in South Yorkshire how the fire service intends to address them with the resources it has available.

The draft plan was discussed by members of the service’s governing Fire Authority on Monday (14 September), who instructed the service to begin a further period of consultation with staff and the public.

The consultation period closes on 4 December.

A man from Sheffield, who set himself on fire when using petrol on his seemingly unlit garden fire, is urging people not to follow in his footsteps and make the same mistake.

Paul Wyatt, 50, was burning hedge trimmings in his garden earlier this year. He put paper on the bottom and hedge trimmings on top, before adding a match, which didn’t light the fire.

He decided to apply a drop of petrol, planning to step back and throw a match on. Unbeknown to him, the original match was still smouldering.

Immediately after pouring the fuel onto the fire, the oil drum he was burning his garden waste in ‘went up light a jet engine’ and set his upper body on fire.

Later that evening he was placed into an induced coma at the Northern General Hospital, with his face burnt and swelling, and doctors concerned about damage to his airways.

He has since made a good recovery but now has to use cream on his burns four times a day, has to wear factor 30 sun cream for a year and has nerve damage to his hands.

Paul, and his wife Ann, now hope that by sharing their story, they can prevent this happening to other people in the future.

“Having spoken to our friends, family and colleagues since the accident, it seems it’s a really common thing to use petrol to fuel a fire,” said Paul, who has to now do exercises to stretch his skin.

“The injuries I have will be with me for the rest of my life, but I know how lucky I am – the hospital staff said it was a good job I didn’t breathe in whilst my head was on fire as I could have damaged my airways and paid a much bigger price.

“I’ll certainly never add any kind of accelerant to a fire again and I’d really urge other people not to make the same mistake I did – it really isn’t worth it.”

Paul’s warning is being supported and echoed by fire officers from South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue, as part of their latest Operation Dark Nights bonfire campaign.

“We always tell people not to use accelerants on bonfires, in fact more recently we’re asking people not to have bonfires at all, and what happened to Paul is exactly why,” said Station Manager Steve Jones, who helps lead the joint police and fire community safety department.

“When it comes to petrol, even the vapours can set alight, and make the fire spread rapidly to the person holding the can. In this incident, it only took a split second and the top half of Paul’s body was totally ablaze.

“Ideally people won’t be having garden fires over the coming weeks but, if you must, don’t even think about adding an accelerant and make sure those you care about don’t, either.”