British firefighters visit Sisters

A contingent of firefighters from the United Kingdom are in Sisters to study wildfire firefighting organization, infrastructure and tactics.

Five firefighters from Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service arrived here last Friday and participated in emergency calls on Saturday. Three of them rolled out with a Sisters task force to provide structure protection on the still-raging wildfire near John Day.

Station Manager David Hodge (roughly equivalent to a Battalion Chief in American Parlance) explained why the British firefighters are here:

"We want to be one of the best fire services in the UK," he said.

To do that, officials from Hampshire Fire & Rescue are traveling to different areas of the globe to tap specific expertise and experience.

"We appreciate that the West Coast would lead in wildfire," he told The Nugget.

Hampshire, located on the central south coast of England, may not have vast forests nor the dry climate that makes Sisters Country so vulnerable, but they have experienced serious wildfire incidents.

"We appreciate that we don't have wildfire on your scale," Hodge said. However, "the skills we're learning here should be easily transferable to an incident of that scale" as would be found in Hampshire.

Another contingent is set to travel to Hong Kong to tap their world-leading expertise in fighting high-rise fires.

Hodge explained that Sisters was chosen through a personal connection: his chief knows Western Fire Chiefs Association executive Jeff Johnson - who is the brother of Sisters Fire Chief Roger Johnson.

Chief Johnson and his crew welcomed the UK firefighters eagerly, anxious to hear about how the fire service is conducted in the UK. Hodge and fellow firefighter Glenn Bowyer offered a glimpse of their work in a presentation on Monday evening at Sisters Fire Hall.

In the UK, fire and ambulance services are separate entities, with ambulance service working under the auspices of Great Britain's National Health Service. The fire and rescue service does, however, provide "co-responders" who can get to a medical or accident call quickly and aid a casualty until an ambulance arrives. Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service is the sole responding authority for fire and rescue in a county that covers about 1,400 square miles and a population of 1.5 million. That population is concentrated in two historic British port cities - Southampton and Portsmouth - and is augmented in the summer by hordes of coastal holiday-goers.

The northern and western parts of the county are more rural and include two national parks, where wildfire is a threat.

The service has some significant challenges. The extensive docks and shipping areas in the two large cities create the scenario for maritime firefighting. Portsmouth is the most densely populated city in Europe and its narrow streets often will not accommodate a fire engine -even though those "appliances," as they're called, are much smaller than those housed here in Sisters.

They also have to deal with something not seen in the U.S. Some historic homes are required to retain thatched roofs - which obviously are vulnerable to fire and pose some challenges to those who respond to douse a blaze.

Unlike Sisters, there are no volunteers in the fire service - there are full-time firefighters and part-time but paid firefighters, who must live or work within a four-minute response time from their station. Hampshire operates with a staff of 1,845 on a (U.S.) $103.3 million budget and responds to some 12,000 calls in a year.

The UK firefighters will be in town or deployed in the region for two weeks.