Fire crews gain vital skills in training sessions

FIRE crews from Warrington and Halton have been honing their firefighting skills and techniques at Fiddlers Ferry Power Station.
In the training sessions firefighters wearing breathing apparatus tackled a mock hazardous material and decontamination incident.
The training exercise saw crews from Warrington, Penketh, Lymm, Birchwood, Widnes and Runcorn successfully rescued two casualties while keeping themselves safe from asbestos following an explosion at the plant.
In the final session a drone was utilised to capture aerial images and enable the incident commander to appreciate the size and scale of the scene.
Penketh Fire Station manager Neil Winstanley said: “Training sessions to prepare crews for real life incidents and test their firefighting, organisational and team working skills are so important.
“We never know what type of building we’ll get called to, so we have to prepare all our firefighters on how to stay safe when dealing with contaminants such as asbestos.
“We devise challenging scenarios to really test our crews and make sure that they, and Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service as a whole, benefit from training exercises as much as possible.
“Held at Fiddlers Ferry Power Station in Warrington, the latest sessions offered the challenges of an explosion at a power plant, injured casualties and the release of a significant amount of asbestos into the air.
“Our crews worked together to deal with those challenges exceptionally well, ensuring that the required equipment and resources were used to rescue the casualties and make the plant safe without putting firefighters at undue risk of harm.
“We have had excellent feedback on the sessions from those who took part.
“We hope that they never have to deal with such an incident in real life, but if they do they are now even better prepared to do so.
“I would like to thank everyone at Fiddlers Ferry Power Station for allowing us to hold the training sessions there and for the support they gave us on the days.”