How are our Peterborough offices helping keep the community safer?

Stanair were delighted to offer the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Brigade a chance to hone their lifesaving skills by using their offices as a life saving training exercise within unfamiliar environments. 

 

You won’t find anything like the Peterborough Volunteer fire station anywhere else in the UK. It’s two fire engines are crewed by volunteers who offer their life saving services…for free. All the volunteers undertake the same recruitment and training processes as regular firefighters and train weekly to ensure that they can prevent, respond and protect the public whenever they are needed. 

 

Their origins lie all the way back in 1884 by a group of Peterborough businessmen after they believed that the efforts of the city’s own brigade had been ineffective when dealing with a fire in the town’s infirmary. The volunteers operate as a private fire brigade under the jurisdiction of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority and now, lead by Chief Officer De Matteis, they are called to help respond to a variety of incidents from fires to road traffic collisions to flooding. 

 

However, although they are always ready to help, their priority is to help ensure that their services are not needed at all through free seminars aiming to educate local employers in how to comply with fire safety laws as well as organising free ‘Safe and Well’ visits as well as working with partner agencies to help reduce arson attacks and road collisions. 

 

Training exercises are regularly carried out at the Fire station but when their Watch Commander (and also one of our senior engineers) Mark Addinall, wanted to present his team with a fresh challenge when completing their next breathing apparatus drill, he thought of Stanair. And Stanair were only too delighted to give him and his teams the opportunity to improve thorough the after hours use of their premises. 

 

Stanair’s Peterborough office provided plenty of opportunity for the crews to test their skills. The crews had to navigate unfamiliar territory whilst they wore their breathing apparatus. This consisted of one (or more) oxygen cylinders strapped to their backs and a mask which covered their entire face. To add more challenge to the exercise, there were simulated casualties inside the premises which needed to be rescued. 

 

‘It was a fantastic opportunity to give the Volunteer Fire Brigade team the chance to hone their rescue skills within a new environment and to closely simulate the challenges that could arise in a real emergency situation. We want to extend our gratitude to Stanair for kindly allowing us to make use of their offices for our training and helping our teams be the best that they can be when it comes to serving our community.’ Said Mark Addinall, Watch Commander. 

 

“Mark is a valued member of the Stanair team and we’ve always admired his volunteering efforts with the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Station,” said Will Smith, Managing Director at Stanair, “when they were in need of help, we were more than happy to be of assistance to support their amazing work. 

 

“We were delighted to offer our offices as a training site for the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Brigade. Knowing that the use of our offices allows this unique service to continue to operate to the very best of their life-saving ability fills our company with pride.” 

 

To learn more about the work of the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Brigade as well as to discover how you could become a part of this amazing team, click here.