South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue
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Crews test response to chemical leak

A team of more than 30 firefighters has tested its response to a major chemical leak in South Yorkshire.

The live training exercise, held at an industrial site in Birley, Sheffield saw crews re-enact their response to a dangerous chemical spillage, with a scenario that included evacuations and multiple public and firefighter casualties.

Although incidents like this are extremely rare, officers say live training is the best way of topping up the skills of firefighters, making sure they are fully prepared to respond to any type of incident in the future.

Station manager Mark Wilkinson, said: “Our firefighters could be asked to respond to a massive range of incidents at any time of the day or night. It’s not just fires we deal with, so it’s important we look at our response to lots of different scenarios.

“Fortunately, chemical incidents as serious as the one we tested our response to today are very rare. But it’s important we test all of the plans we have in place to deal with something like this in case the worst does happen.

“Going through plans on paper is one thing, but often the only way of really testing our decision making ability is to re-enact the incident in a live environment. I’m pleased to say our crews came through this particular training exercise with flying colours.”

This content was last updated on August 22nd, 2018