Fire and flood fighter Adrian Mayhew

Flood fighters

Nearly 150 thousand people in the Midlands live in areas threatened by floods - and with water levels rising that figure is only going to increase.

If we're not willing or able to move our homes from these areas, then we need to prepare for the worst.

In the future, flooding is going to put not just our property, but our lives in danger.

But are the emergency services ready to meet this challenge?

Inside Out has been following Midlands fire crews as they learn to become flood fighters.

River rescue

When they signed up to join, training in river rescue was probably not what today's firefighters had in mind.

But in 2000 the worst floods for 50 years took the emergency services by surprise, and now they're playing catch-up.

Helicopter training - now an essential part of rescue work

New skills are needed fast, and a lack of suitable training sites has seen them travel as far as the United States to get them.

As well as river rescue they're being taught short-haul helicopter rescue, learning how to get people to dry land as quickly and safely as possible.

There's also investment in new equipment, including high-powered hoses to drain water out of flooded areas faster.

Correct knowledge and skills

Adrian Mayhew is firefighter with Hereford and Worcester Fire service:

"Now we have the correct clothing to wear, the correct equipment to use, the correct knowledge and the correct skills to make sure we get that person, and ourselves, out of danger very quickly.

"We're not where we were six months ago, where we didn't have that protective equipment, and didn't have that knowledge and that training."

All hand to the decks - the modern face of rescue work

With some parts of the country seeing a foot of rainfall over a 10 day period though, the scale of the challenge is not to be under-estimated.

Firefighting forces are preparing for the challenge.

Paul Hayden is Hereford and Worcester's Fire Chief:

"I think the one of the biggest risks we've got is the numbers of people who may be involved.

"The sheer volume of people in that very urban environment can give us a problem.

"And very often it's not the people who are clinging to tree tops that are the greatest risk, but actually the people who are trapped in the upper floors of their homes, with no electricity, and probably very cold weather."

Links relating to this story:

• West Midlands Fire Service
• Hereford and Worcester Fire Service
• Environment Agency

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Web exclusive interview

"Our role has expanded out of all recognition over the last few years." Paul Hayden, Chief Fire Officer

Behind the scenes...

We asked Paul Hayden, Hereford and Worcester's Fire Chief, to tell us more about the work of his flood fighters in this Q & A interview.

Q. How easy or hard it has been for fire fighters to adjust to learning new skills to deal with flood fighting?

A. Fire fighters have always been involved with environmental disasters such as floods, using the fire engines we have to fight fires to pump flood water away.

Also we've always been involved in assisting as best we can in any rescues, even though we did not have any specialist equipment or training for water emergencies.

However, our role has expanded out of all recognition over the last few years as we have made the change from being a simple "Fire Brigade", to a true "Fire and Rescue Service" that is trained and equipped to respond to a wide range of disasters that now threaten our communities.

Our specialist water rescue teams have undergone very extensive training to ensure that they can operate safely and save lives in the most extreme conditions.

The work is very physical, but also involves a lot of technical knowledge on subjects as diverse as hydrology, so that fire fighters can "read" the water conditions to judge whether there are hidden dangers, or physics to understand the impact of moving water on vehicles and structures during a flood.

Q. What type of situations have come up since they filmed the original TV feature?

A. 2006 saw a record number of flash floods in the Midlands and we are seeing an ever increasing number of people requiring rescue from inland water ways, both due to flooding and due to increased leisure use of our rivers and canals.

A particular concern is the growing number of people who become trapped in their vehicles trying to drive through floodwater, a phenomenon we know from research causes the majority of flood deaths in the USA.

Q. Tell us about the new kit and equipment needed by the force to tackle flood fighting...

A. Our High Volume Water Pumps have made a real difference to our ability to move large volumes of water across considerable distances.

New rescue equipment and pumps are now a feature

We can use these to protect vital infrastructure, such as hospitals or electrical sub stations or provide water for fire fighting.

They have already proven themselves during the Carlisle floods and last year's Bunsfield Oil Refinery fire.

Some of the other rescue equipment used in inland water events differs considerably from that used for water rescue at sea.

For example, our boat design has to consider the significant risk of damaging hulls on submerged obstructions such as street signs in the urban environment or barbed wire fences in rural areas.

Q. Are there any comparisons with the USA situation and what have you leaned from experiences overseas?

A. I have just completed a 14 month national research project on behalf of the UK Chief Fire Officers' Association (CFOA) looking at the way we can respond to environmental disasters in the future.

A key part of that research has been to examine the way the USA responds to the floods bought about by hurricanes.

Face of the future - flooding in our towns and cities?

We quickly identified that some states, such as North Carolina, had learnt some vital lessons from past tragedies and developed world class response and recovery arrangements.

Unfortunately, during the project Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that these lessons had not been acted upon across the whole of the USA.

We are not prepared to wait for our own "Katrina" to happen in the UK before we act.

North Carolina's flood response programme was probably 10 years ahead of the UK when we commenced our project, but, we are now catching up fast and offering them a number of new ideas.

By sharing our experiences, communities both sides of the Atlantic will be safer from whatever the environment throws at us in the future.