Category Archives: Firefighters

Growing safety concerns over lithium-ion batteries after four fires in one day in NSW

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Firefighters responded to blazes set off by an ebike, an EV charging station, a garden hedger and a loose battery in a garbage truck

Lithium-ion batteries sparked four fires in just one day in New South Wales this week, amid growing concern over the rise in battery-related blazes.

One man was taken to hospital and a 10-storey apartment block was evacuated after an ebike battery exploded in Bankstown in Sydney’s south-west on Thursday, while firefighters also responded to blazes set off by an electric vehicle charging station in Berkeley, a garden hedger in Lake Macquarie, and a loose battery in a garbage truck passing through Silverwater.

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Schools and national parks close as Victoria faces worst bushfire conditions in four years

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Hot, dry and windy conditions are forecast across Victoria with a catastrophic fire danger declared for parts of the state

Schools and national parks have been ordered to close as parts of Victoria face the first catastrophic fire conditions since the Black Summer of 2019-20.

Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia were also braced for extreme fire danger amid heatwave conditions.

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MoD firefighters’ pensions delayed after Capita Group blunders

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Trade union Unite tells of concerns about 2025 contract to administer civil service pension scheme

Retired firefighters who were responsible for tackling blazes on military bases have been unable to access their full pension due to “numerous” blunders by the outsourcing group Capita, it has emerged.

Capita won a £525m contract to run the Ministry of Defence’s fire and rescue service in 2019, renaming it the Defence Fire and Rescue Project (DFRP) after the privatisation.

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West Midlands fire service chief found dead at home in Birmingham

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Police say death of Wayne Brown, reportedly under investigation over academic qualifications claims, not being treated as suspicious

Wayne Brown, the chief of West Midlands fire service, has been found dead at his home in Birmingham. Police said his death is not being treated as suspicious. He was reportedly being investigated over claims on social media about his academic qualifications.

Greg Brackenridge, chair of West Midlands fire and rescue authority, said the fire service’s thoughts were with his family. “We are devastated to report that our chief fire officer, Wayne Brown, was this morning found dead at his home address,” he said. “The death is not being treated as suspicious by West Midlands police.

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Faulty ebike battery sparks fire that guts Sydney apartment

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Several people lucky to escape North Bondi blaze that has prompted a warning about lithium-ion batteries

Several people have been lucky to escape after a faulty ebike battery sparked a fire that engulfed a Sydney beachside apartment.

The ebike had been left to charge in the bedroom of a North Bondi unit overnight, Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) said on Friday while warning of the risks posed by lithium-ion batteries.

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Authorities investigate cause of fire at Sydney e-bike workshop

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Blaze broke out at Croydon building Friday morning, with firefighters highlighting risks from lithium batteries

An e-bike workshop has been destroyed in an early morning fire in Sydney’s inner west, causing road closures along the suburb’s shopping strip.

Residents were woken just before 5am on Friday after the fire broke out at the building on Elizabeth Street in Croydon.

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Phone service slowly returns to flood-hit areas – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Just circling back to QFES assistant commissioner Kevin Walsh, who mentioned the state of the roads and reminded people in the area to be very careful when driving around.

Walsh said:

Monday afternoon was the first opportunity that we had to send in rotary aircraft, so we got rotary-wing aircraft in large numbers up in Far North Queensland at the moment through private contractors and also Australian Defence Force. So they’re very busy in the air and relocating people.

And I think the other message also is to have a look at those roads and the damage that they have sustained. There are many roads still under water where you can not see that damage. So it’s really important for the local people to realise that it’s still very, very dangerous to be driving through flooded waters because you can’t see the damage of the roads underneath it. That’s one of our key messages we’d like the local communities to heed.

So far we’ve only been able to assess about 60 properties. I think throughout today though, we’ll get a better sense of how many properties are affected, and then we’ll be looking for further packages of disaster assistance that will put together or put together with the commonwealth.

But just judging from the other emergencies that I’ve been a part of, we’re talking billions not millions [of dollars].

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NSW bushfires: more than 60 blazes burning including out-of-control fire in Pilliga

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Duck Creek fire in the Pilliga forest burning out of control 20km south of Narrabri, while more bushfires hit Sydney and Hunter regions

Firefighters are tackling more than 60 blazes across New South Wales, including a giant out-of-control bushfire in the Pilliga forest in the state’s north-west that has been fuelling dangerous fire-generated thunderstorms.

The blaze at Duck Creek in the Pilliga forest was burning about 20km south of the town of Narrabri – home to more than 12,000 people – and a similar distance from Boggabri to the east on Tuesday morning.

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Australia news live: school strike for climate protests draw huge crowds in Melbourne and Sydney; Albanese says Apec leaders ‘very interested’ in Tuvalu deal

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‘A ceasefire is where we need to get to,’ Zoe Daniel says

Asked by RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas if she supports calls for a ceasefire, Zoe Daniel says:

If you call for a ceasefire, you’re letting down the Jewish community, if you don’t you’re allowing death and destruction to happen in Gaza.

At the end of the day, if I say to you right now, yes, I support ceasefire, that will make zero difference to what is happening in in Gaza.

I’m a former foreign correspondent. I know the logistics of this, of course, a ceasefire is where we need to get to, but you have a terrorist organisation in the middle of this. If there’s just a ceasefire, and there’s no capacity there to try to dismantle Hamas, does that allow Hamas to regroup? What does that actually lead to? That said, I’ve said to you before, very clearly, and I still stick to the position that the Israeli government has to adhere to international law and the rules of war, and I think, in some ways, has not been.

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Shropshire firefighters rescue ‘one donkey, stuck in storm drain’

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Amigo the donkey hoisted to safety after falling waist-deep into muddy drain hole covered by leaves

Donkeys have a reputation for being stubborn. But in the case of “poor Amigo”, a donkey who has been rescued by firefighters from a field in Shropshire, it wasn’t stubbornness that kept him stationary – it was mud.

A spokesperson from Shropshire fire and rescue said a team of “10 or 11 firefighters” attended a call to rescue the hapless animal, who got stuck in waist-deep mud after falling into a hidden storm drain covered in leaves.

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Australian fires: residents of NSW towns urged to take shelter as Victorian warnings downgraded

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Emergency alerts have been issued in the Cessnock and Bega Valley regions of NSW, but warnings in Gippsland have been downgraded

Residents are being warned to take shelter as fire crews battle to bring bushfires in the New South Wales south coast and Hunter regions under control, with those living in several towns told that it is too late for them to leave.

In NSW, the rural fire service (RFS) issued emergency alerts warning that it was too late to leave the towns of Abernethy and Elrington, near the Hunter Valley city of Cessnock, along with Bermagui, Cuttagee, Barragga Bay, Murrah and Bunga in the Bega Valley on the state’s south coast, on Tuesday afternoon.

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Australia news live: Greens’ McKim says Pezzullo should be ‘working on his resignation letter’ after texts leaked

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Senator and home affairs spokesperson calls Pezzullo’s position ‘completely untenable’. Follow the day’s news live

Residents rescued from suspicious apartment block blaze in Melbourne

Residents trapped inside a burning Melbourne care facility have been safely rescued, with the blaze regarded as suspicious, AAP reports.

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Australia ‘better prepared’ for bushfires than ahead of black summer as government considers national community service

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Emergency services minister says service would likely be voluntary as government ‘wouldn’t want to commit to obliging people or forcing them’

National community service is being considered among a suite of options to boost recruitment to fight fires, but the Australian emergency services minister has suggested service is likely to remain voluntary.

On Sunday, Murray Watt revealed that national community service, an idea championed by influential crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie, is the “sort of option is under consideration” through a home affairs department review.

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Firefighters fear being ‘overwhelmed’ by rise in battery fires after fatal Sydney blaze

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A NSW fire and rescue superintendent said the death of a man in a Sydney fire on Saturday night was part of a ‘marked increase’ in such incidents

Firefighters say they fear being ‘“overwhelmed” by increasing numbers of battery fires, after the death of a Sydney man in a house fire on Saturday night was linked to toxic smoke from burning lithium batteries.

The 54-year-old man was eating downstairs in his Punchbowl unit in Sydney’s west with two women when the fire broke out. He tried to extinguish the blaze with a fire extinguisher, but when firefighters arrived he was found unconscious on his bathroom floor with soot on his mouth, having inhaled toxic smoke.

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About 100 firefighters tackle huge blaze at east London business centre

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Plume of smoke visible for miles as 15 fire engines attend site in Bow, where no casualties have yet been reported

Thick black smoke billowed into the sky on Friday evening when a huge fire broke out in east London. About 100 firefighters tackled the blaze at a business centre with flats in Fairfield Road in Bow.

The London fire brigade (LFB) described it as a “very visible fire” and said most of the roof of the six-storey building was alight. The cause of the fire is not yet known and there were no reports of injuries.

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Bibby Stockholm asylum barge is ‘potential deathtrap’, say firefighters

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FBU to write to Home Office with overcrowding concerns after first group’s arrival delayed due to safety issues on Dorset-based vessel

Firefighters have accused ministers of attempting to house asylum seekers on a “potential deathtrap” after health and safety officials prompted a further delay to the use of a giant barge until next week.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said it is planning to write to the Home Office about overcrowding and access to fire exits on the vessel. The health and safety officials’ intervention had already led to the postponement of the arrival of the first men who were due to stay on the 222-bedroom Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset.

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Every fire brigade in England plagued by bullying and harassment claims, report finds

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Inspectors say ‘deeply troubling’ behaviour found at fire and rescue services across England may be ‘tip of the iceberg’

Every fire brigade in England is plagued with bullying, harassment and discrimination complaints, a damning report has found, and officials have called for drastic measures to clean up the service.

Inspectors urged bosses to carry out background checks on every firefighter, with those who fail being sacked, after long-awaited findings shone a light on “deeply troubling” behaviour in the emergency service.

A senior officer accused of calling a black colleague the N-word dismissing it as simply “having a laugh”.

A firefighter reporting a superior for making a racist comment, only to find his account dismissed because the alleged offender “wouldn’t behave in such a way”. The senior officer in question then threatened “to make his life hell”.

Two male firefighters mockingly told a female colleague they were “going to rape her”, before simulating it with her.

Some staff being reluctant to speak up after being told it would be “career suicide” to do so.

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Union leader urges TUC to unite in defying planned anti-strike law

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Fire Brigades Union chief says joint action needed to oppose ‘pernicious’ minimum service levels bill

A leading trade union has called for a concerted campaign of defiance and civil disobedience against the government’s planned anti-strike laws.

Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), urged a coordinated campaign among trade unions of “mass non-cooperation and non-compliance” against the minimum service levels bill.

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Life amid the rubble: UK specialists on their Turkey earthquake rescue effort

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After the first quake hit, 77 Britons were deployed to join teams from around the world. Here, some recount their experiences

British search-and-rescue specialists deployed to Turkey after its earthquake on 6 February have recalled the scenes of devastation that they encountered, as the country and its southern neighbour Syria were hit by two more tremors this week.

“If we were still out there [this week], we would have been in those buildings,” said Wayne Ward, a firefighter for Lancashire’s rescue service, and one of 77 British specialists deployed to Turkey in the days that followed the first quake.

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London fire brigade reviews Freemason ties after union criticism

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FBU raised concerns at meeting discussing review that found service to be institutionally misogynist

London fire brigade is reviewing its relationship with the Freemasons after concerns were raised by the Fire Brigades Union, the Guardian has learned.

The concerns were raised at a recent London assembly meeting to discuss a damning independent review that found LFB to be institutionally racist and misogynist.

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