00:00What we've seen this summer was one of our most challenging summers we've seen in the history of South Wales
00:05Fire and Rescue Service with regards to 227% increase in our call rates and are spending a significant length
00:14of time at incidents as part of that.
00:17We received over a thousand grass fire incidents and again now we had 14 consecutive incidents ongoing at any one
00:25time which led the service then into the pressures of declaring a major incident.
00:30This is what we're seeing now as a complete shift in the demand of the fire rescue services across the
00:36UK and again at any one time there were 19 consecutive major incidents declared across the UK.
00:42But what we can take from that is again the climate and the changing environment which firefighters are dealing with
00:49across the UK and this is where we're seeing that increased wildfire.
00:53Last year we've seen significantly increased flooding so this is likely to be now the case that we see the
00:59change within the UK and it's for us as a fire rescue service now to ensure we're prepared to deal
01:04with these incidents.
01:05Firefighters need to be trained specifically for wildfire fighting or call it rural firefighting which is very different from urban
01:13firefighting and normally it is enough to use ground resources, vehicles, water pumps but also for example bulldozers are important
01:21in stopping fires.
01:22You simply just remove the vegetation ahead of the fire and the fire and the fire will burn itself out
01:27or you can even burn a strip of land ahead of the fire front and once that strip of land
01:33is burned under controlled conditions the fire that moves there will stop.
01:37However, under extreme conditions you cannot get close enough to that fire and this is when aerial supports such as
01:45helicopters or planes are more important.
01:47They not necessarily put out the fire completely but they can help to stop the fire from moving to an
01:55area that is particularly important for example or protect houses.
01:59We've supported other fire and rescue services across the UK with our wildfire teams as part of when they've had
02:06incidents.
02:06This year we were asking for that support ourselves with fire and rescue services coming from as far as Cumbria
02:12and across the bridge from Gloucester and Avon and across our natives in mid and west.
02:16Really in the future we do need this aerial support to be available under those more extreme conditions.
02:23They can be extremely effective if the fire is still relatively small.
02:27Once the fire gets completely out of control and is too large then it might even be too late for
02:33aerial support.
02:34We have seen properties tragically lost this year and thankfully no lives were impacted from that.
02:40But again, this is something we would remind people we are seeing an increased level of deliberate fire setting, especially
02:47with wildfires.
02:48And what we would remind people is wildfires and deliberately set wildfires have consequences and are carrying a custodial sentence
02:57should they get caught.
02:59So, let's get started.
