Two multi-million pound fire stations in Sheffield have opened and are responding to 999 calls for the first time.

The stations at Parkway and Birley Moor will allow South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue to provide a better service to the community, particularly to the south-east Sheffield area.

Area Manager Phil Shillito, head of emergency response, said: “These two new fire stations are central to the provision of our service in south and east Sheffield. They are located in the optimum positions to enable us to respond quickly and effectively to emergency incidents.

“The stations at Darnall, Mansfield Road and Mosborough have been part of our communities for more than half a century, but their lives as working fire stations had come to an end and it’s time to turn to an exciting new chapter in the provision of our core, emergency response service.

“The facilities highlight, in spite of a challenging economic backdrop, our relentless commitment to providing the best possible fire cover to the people of Sheffield and beyond.”

With the opening of the new stations, Darnall, Mansfield Road and Mosborough stations have closed. Darnall fire station opened in 1956 and Mansfield Road in 1965. Mosborough transferred from Derbyshire to Sheffield Fire Brigade in 1967.

The new, full-time station at Birley Moor will cover a much greater area of South Yorkshire than the existing part-time station at Mosborough, right on the Derbyshire border, was able to. It will house one full time and one part time fire engine.

Darnall and Mansfield Road stations were built to address risks in Sheffield’s major industrial sites, including the city’s major steelworks. The new Parkway station will be better placed to protect new housing developments in the area, plus road traffic collisions on Sheffield Parkway and the nearby road infrastructure. It will house a full time fire engine and an aerial appliance.

A firefighter has spent the past seven months working with pupils at a Sheffield academy to have a positive impact on their learning and behaviour.

Retired firefighter Ian Foster spends one day a week at Springs Academy helping teachers and providing a positive role model to pupils.

Ian recently retired as a firefighter and continues to work for South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue on community and youth engagement. He was tasked with working with the youngsters at the school to help educate them about road safety and the dangers of arson in an informal and relaxed way.

Consisting of around eight pupils from years 9 and 10, their day is structured around practical activities and safety workshops. These include planning, constructing and marketing items which they make in school to sell, such as wooden bird nesting boxes and bird feeding tables, as well as discussion sessions around fire and road safety. They have also been involved in gardening and have planted a variety of different vegetables at their site.

The youngsters also take part in external activities, including visits to fire stations and the National Emergency Services Museum, as well as undertaking different team building exercises.

This School Liaison Officer role that Ian performs was devised by South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue as it drives down the amount of small, deliberate fires.

The fire service hopes more schools will now see the benefits of having a uniformed presence working with their pupils.

Ian Foster said: “We are fortunate that firefighters have a really positive image within the community and the impact of having that uniformed role model in school for just a few hours a week can be vast.

“Our work educating young people about fires and road safety has helped to reduce incidents massively over the last few years, but we’re pleased the academy can see the benefits of this project which go far beyond our traditional role.”

Michael Goldenburgh at Springs Academy said; “Ian, our School Liaison Officer, is great with our students, he attends on a regular basis and all the students now expect to see him every week. They look forward to his time with them in school and in particular the practical exercises and activities in the afternoon. He is an excellent role model for our students and most of them are benefiting from the skills and knowledge he delivers.”

Firefighters have returned home victorious after picking up an award at an international road traffic collision contest held in Germany.

Battling 28 teams from 16 countries, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s crew showed off their skills while competing in The Extrication Challenge, walking away with the top prize in the ‘Best Medic’ category.

One team after another was challenged to respond to a unique 20 minute vehicle extrication scenario, meaning they had to rescue a trapped and injured casualty from a car crash as quickly and safely as possible.

“There was a casualty in the vehicle, who was actually a doctor and an assessor of the event,” said team leader and incident commander Chris Tyler.

“He was even wearing an earpiece so he could assess everything that our medic and the rest of the team were doing. There’s also a trauma doctor assessing you outside of the vehicle along with two other external assessors.

“We quickly performed a survey of the scene and the firefighter tasked as the medic in our team will advise us what he wants to happen because of the casualty’s condition.

“In this instance the casualty had neck and pelvis injuries, so we needed to get the casualty out safely while keeping them straight.

“Of course it’s nice to get recognition for our skills but the main focus of these events is to study what new information is available to develop better and safer procedures.

“We’re able to learn directly from industry leading experts and manufacturers, which means we can understand the potential hazards as well as the latest techniques to help anybody unfortunate enough to be involved in a road traffic collision.

“This improves the safety for our own firefighters at incidents like these but ultimately means we are better equipped to provide a swift and effective service to the public of South Yorkshire.”

The team will now go on to represent South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue at a similar national event, competing against 45 fire and rescue services from across the United Kingdom, on Friday 31.

A Sheffield firefighter has donated £1,000 to charity after winning the money in a competition.

Crew Manager Paul Wood from white watch on Central station in Sheffield, won the money last year while attending the national fire service Breathing Apparatus (BA) Challenge, where he took part in the guess the name of the bear competition, which to Paul’s surprise he won.

He decided to donate the full £1,000 prize money between two charities, The Children’s Hospital Charity for the Burns Unit and The Fire Fighters Charity, getting £500 each.

Paul has this week presented his cheques to each of the charities.

Paul said; “I couldn’t believe my luck when I was told I had won, it was such a surprise. I knew straight away though that I wanted to donate the money to charity. The Fire Fighters Charity was the obvious choice, having been a firefighter for the past 19 years. I also chose The Children’s Hospital Charity as I wanted to help a local charity and having two children of my own I felt it was a very worthy cause.”

Judith Oliver, the Fire Fighters Charity fundraiser in Yorkshire, said; “We can’t thank Paul enough. Working with members of the fire and rescue services is always a pleasure as they are such generous and community-minded people”.

The Children’s Hospital Charity’s director, David Vernon-Edwards, said: “This is an incredible donation, which comes at a critical time in our hospital transformation as we strive to fundraise for a brand new wing at The Children’s Hospital in Sheffield. As part of our Make it Better appeal, we urgently need funds to bring world-class facilities to the already world-class hospital, so Paul’s amazing support means we are a step closer to that.”

Safety experts responsible for putting fire protection systems in iconic buildings like the Shard and Sydney Operate House have been put through their paces at a South Yorkshire training exercise.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue (SYFR) staged the exercise for seven fire engineers from ARUP, a multinational company responsible for implementing fire safety systems in large buildings worldwide.

The exercise at South Yorkshire’s Handsworth training base included scenarios in the service’s cutting edge Realistic Fire Training Building.

The training was designed to help the engineers to experience first-hand the physical demands placed on fire crews attending incidents.

SYFR’s Roger Brason, who helped organise the training, said: “As part of the design process, fire engineers have an obligation under building regulations to provide access and facilities for fire services. Physical attributes which are a daily part of a firefighters’ role are at times not fully quantified in design consideration by the fire engineering community.

“But staging this training allowed the engineers to understand how standard features commonly provided in buildings, such as dry and wet risers, fire fighting lifts, fire hydrants and smoke ventilation are used in real life events.”

Sometimes features which can aid firefighting are engineered out of designs to save money and space, so SYFR hopes that by staging the exercise engineers will have a better understanding of the impact this can have.

The exercise was led by South Yorkshire’s technical fire safety team, which is responsible for engaging businesses in the county and ensuring they meet obligations under fire safety legislation.

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The first of two new aerial appliances has arrived in South Yorkshire. It is now being kitted out before firefighters undergo familiarisation training with the new vehicle.

The Turntable Ladder (TL) has been manufactured by Metz XS and supplied through the Rosenbauer Group here in the UK. It is believed to be the best specification firefighting turntable ladder on the market.

The L32A model has superior accuracy and agility compared to an aerial ladder platform (ALP), deploying 90 seconds faster. Its ladder can reach 32 metres and provides water more quickly than an ALP.

After specifications were submitted by companies interested in providing the vehicles, extensive testing by a working group consisting of staff in various roles across the fire service took place.

A dozen fire service volunteers joined a march through Rotherham town centre this week, in celebration of their service to local people.

The walk, organised by Voluntary Action Rotherham, attracted support from businesses and individuals along the route. More than 200 people who volunteer for a variety of local organisations joined the walk to mark National Volunteers’ Week.

Volunteers contribute to the work of South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue (SYFR) in a variety of ways, including supporting community safety events, schools work and helping to deliver educational scenarios for the thousands of children who visit Lifewise Centre, Rotherham each year.

Sue Butler, volunteers coordinator at SYFR, said: “This is overdue recognition not just for those volunteers who give up their time to make their communities safer by working with the fire service, but for the many thousands of volunteers from across Rotherham who are helping local people on a daily basis.”

Click for more information about volunteering for the fire service.

A partnership youth project has helped turn around anti-social behaviour on one of Sheffield’s toughest estates.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue has worked with partners including Salvation Army and South Yorkshire Police to deliver a 10 week youth club project on the Badger Estate, Woodhouse.

The scheme sees youngsters meet once a week to take part in physical activities like football, basketball and dodgeball, as well as educational sessions around first aid, road safety and the consequences of anti-social behaviour.

The scheme runs from January to March each year, when the number of alternative, positive activities available to youngsters in the area is normally at its lowest.

It’s had a big effect, cutting fires by a third. The number of anti-social behaviour fires in south east Sheffield fell from 52 in 2013 to 35 this year.

SYFR arson reduction officer Steve Vinson, said: “We can’t say that this project alone has led to the big reductions in anti-social behaviour, but we are convinced that engaging with young people in this way is one of the best ways of building lasting, positive relationships which have long term benefits for the communities we serve.

“It’s only by working together that public agencies can put together initiatives like this one and we are grateful to all the partners involved in helping us deliver these youth clubs for the third year running.”

It’s not just in south east Sheffield that fire service youth work is making an impact.

Arson in South Yorkshire has halved in the last three years, with the fire service crediting its ongoing community interventions with the big drop in anti-social behaviour incidents.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue attended 2,527 small, deliberate incidents like bin and grass fires in 2014/15- half the number it attended three years ago (5,082). Twelve years ago, in 2003/04, the figure was even higher- 11,303.

Recent initiatives held elsewhere in the county include a youth project held at Rotherham fire station, which aimed to highlight the consequences of anti-social behaviour and provide an intensive multi-agency work experience course to improve the life chances of the young people involved.

Arson cycle teams patrol known trouble spots during peak times of the year, speaking to youngsters about the consequences of arson.

Firefighters also deliver education packages to schools and safety teams visit youth clubs to deter fire setting.

For more information about the fire service’s work with young people, visit www.syfire.gov.uk