Firefighters staged the ‘rescue’ at the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service’s new facility at Newbridge in Edinburgh. The scenario involved the crews racing to a fire at a petrochemical facility and snatching a casualty to safety before dousing the flames.
The facility is now the second largest fire training site in Scotland. It will equip 1,600 personnel from across 65 fire stations with the knowledge and skills to respond to fires within domestic, industrial and commercial buildings. Firefighters will also be trained to respond to a wide range of other incidents such as road traffic collision, urban search and rescue, mass decontamination, rope rescue and water rescue. New firefighting technologies such as ultra high-pressure lances (UHPL) will also be used there.
Community safety minister Ash Denham was joined at the official opening by SFRS board chair Dr Kirsty Darwent and chief officer Martin Blunden.
Denham said: “I was very impressed to see firefighters being put through their paces at the new training facility. Training is an essential component in ensuring firefighters maintain the skills and professional competencies needed to keep our communities safe. Having these fantastic facilities in the east of Scotland also allows training to be delivered closer to home, enabling firefighters to spend less time away from their core duties and their families.”
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Robertson Central East managing director David Cairns said: “Robertson is proud to have delivered this hugely significant project for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The state-of-the-art training facility in Newbridge will train more than 1,600 firefighters every year, in turn benefiting dozens of community fire stations.
“Across our civil engineering and construction teams, we have ensured the training centre meets the unique requirements of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, with some of the training set to take place in temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius.
“We look forward to building on our partnership with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service with enabling works recently getting under way on a similar training facility in Portlethen near Aberdeen.”
The project was procured through Scape Group’s National Major Works Framework, since superseded by Major Works Scotland, part of Scape’s National Construction framework. It was delivered by Robertson in partnership with Willmott Dixon.
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