As fire and rescue incidents grow more complex, national resilience depends on robust planning, interoperable communications and reliable access to specialist capability.
Gary Walsh, former Chief Fire Officer of East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service and Specialist Advisor on Fire and Rescue Services at Dräger Safety UK, explains how integrating industry partners into the full prevention, preparedness, response and recovery cycle can help ensure services are ready to scale when local resources are stretched.
What can large-scale incidents teach us about emergency preparedness?
When fire and rescue commanders arrive at a fast-moving, complex incident, lives depend on clear communications, access to the right information and resources, and confidence in working alongside other responders. National resilience creates that confidence in joint working when there is the need to scale up capability quickly.
But as incidents become more complex, the demands placed on the current system are increasing and as a result national resilience is under strain.
Lessons from major incidents, set out in the Pollock Report (1986), provide clarity that national resilience cannot depend on individual services improvising under dynamic conditions. It requires effective planning, good communications, shared situational awareness, and multi-agency preparedness to deal with incidents that exceed single agency or local capacity.
Buncefield is a significant example of the system under strain. On 11 December 2005, explosions at the Hemel Hempstead depot sent up a vast smoke plume and fires burned for several days. Although no lives were lost, more than 40 people were injured, residents and businesses were disrupted, roads were closed, and contaminated firefighting water contributed to long-term groundwater contamination. The incident stretched firefighting, public protection and recovery capability.
The Investigation Board’s recommendations on preparedness, communications, command, coordination and recovery remain relevant today because those same factors can determine whether a response to a complex incident is effective. Although Buncefield was exceptional, the pressures it exposed have not gone away.
Although Buncefield was exceptional, the pressures it exposed have not gone away.
More recently in Essex, a major industrial fire escalated when stored fertiliser exploded. More than 100 firefighters were deployed, nearby residents were evacuated, emergency service vehicles were destroyed and 20 firefighters were treated in hospital. The incident showed again how quickly a fire can stretch crews, equipment, communications and multi-agency coordination.
The North Hyde substation fire in March 2025 caused a major power outage forcing Heathrow Airport to close while its internal electrical network was reconfigured. It affected homes, businesses, transport links, hospital services and data centres, showing how one infrastructure failure can have wider consequences across the UK’s critical national infrastructure.
At Bicester Motion in May 2025, ten fire crews responded to a major fire at the historic motoring and aviation business park. The incident claimed the lives of two firefighters and a local businessman and left two other firefighters seriously injured before the scene could be moved into recovery.
These incidents differ in cause and scale, but they all have similar challenges of protracted operations, stretched local and specialist capability, multiple agencies working under stressful conditions, the demand for data and effective communications.
For firefighters, real-time data and communications keep crews safe. When commanders know which of their people are deployed, what they face, where they are and how the incident is developing, they can make better informed decisions.
