Could you help the fire and rescue service in Norfolk?

A guest blog from Norfolk Fire & Rescue’s Community Safety Manager, Rigil Kent, on how he wants to work with farmers to tackle field fires.

We’ve launched a new project to help us deal with Norfolk’s field fires in a more effective way - but we need the help of the local farming community.

This summer’s heatwave caused devastation to many Norfolk communities and our aim is to prevent this from happening again.

When a fire appliance attends a field on fire and starts to apply water it has enough to last for six minutes.

This is where you can help; if you have water supplies on your farm, such as lagoons or reservoirs that you think we could access, please let us know. If we know the location of these water supplies in advance, we can save valuable time by accessing that water earlier if there was an incident near you.

We are also looking into how we can connect our fire and rescue equipment to agricultural equipment such as water bowsers, and irrigation systems, through the use of adaptors. Your help with information on where these are and what connections you use across your farm will aid in the creation of the adaptors we may need.

If you have water supplies that we could use please send us a What3words location (find the details online at what3words.com or download the free app) and some detail about the capacity of the supply, access routes and whether any hard standing is available. We can map these on our systems so that operational crews can access these at the earliest possible opportunity. We are really interested to hear of those supplies that are over 45,000 litres.

You can contact our water department with details either by phone on 0300 123 1165 or by email at firewaterofficer@norfolk.gov.uk

If you would like to talk to somebody in the Fire and Rescue Service about fire prevention matters, please email Rigil.kent@norfolk.gov.uk or phone 07452 940635.