^ London's (England) firefighting MINI's are suitable for up to one third of all callouts

THE NEXT time you call 999 to report a fire, you may not get a big red fire engine racing round the corner with its siren wailing and blue lights cutting through the smoke. It could be a two-seat MINI.

Fire brigades are drawing up plans to replace traditional engines with smaller cars, including MINI's. The vehicles are said to reduce response times, as they can travel faster and manoeuvre more easily than a big tender. They can cope with a third of all call-outs, including “cat stuck up a tree” calls, fires in skips and wheelie bins and other small blazes.

The initiative will also save millions of pounds and could require fewer firefighters. The London Fire Brigade, Britain’s biggest fire and rescue service, is leading the way. The capital’s fleet of fire cars includes five firefighting MINI Countrymans that were used at the Olympic Park during last summer’s Games.The brigade wants to add more vehicles, including 4x4s capable of carrying water and pumps as well as breathing equipment, enabling their crews to tackle house fires.

“ I would like to bring in small vehicles, probably to replace some fire engines,” says Ron Dobson, who, as London’s fire commissioner, runs the £409m-a-year service. “I think we will have fire stations with one big engine and one small vehicle. The little one will go out to many incidents, like small fires or where an automatic alarm has been triggered.”

The four-wheel-drive MINI Countryman models used by the London Fire Brigade have only two seats, which enables them to fit six extinguishers in the back (two each of water, foam and powder), plus a first aid kit and defibrillator.

Weighing 10 tons less than the brigade’s Mercedes Atego fire engines, they cannot carry anything close to the same amount of kit. But, at less than £25,000 each, the MINI's are roughly a tenth of the price of a new fire engine, use less fuel and — at 5ft 10in wide — are 2ft narrower.

On more than 300 occasions when responding to emergency calls received from the Olympic Park last summer, the service dispatched a MINI rather than a traditional fire engine to weave through the crowds.

Most of the calls were false alarms caused by steam from hot showers or athletes using barbecues in their rooms. Crews also extinguished small fires in bins caused by cigarettes, and gave first aid to spectators.
Most calls to the fire service do not involve fires. Just under half of the 190,300 calls that the London Fire Brigade received in 2011-12 were false alarms. More than a quarter were to do with non-fire emergencies such as road accidents and water rescues. Only 23% of calls related to a fire that needed to be extinguished.
“The MINI's could be used to investigate automatic alarms,” says Dobson. “If they found a fire that was beyond the capability of the Minis, they would call for backup.

“There is a lot of scope to use SUVs such as BMW X5s or Audi Q7s. We could put pumps and breathing apparatus on them, and have pull-out drawers with equipment in the back, and there would be space for four firefighters.
“We borrowed a BMW X5 last October for six weeks fitted with a compressed-air foam system, which can put out fires more quickly with less water damage.”
Dobson says cars can reach emergencies quicker than fire engines, so even if they cannot deal with a blaze and need to call for backup, there will be little additional delay.

“There will be some concern among the public,” he admits. “They like to see a big fire engine turn up with firefighters jumping off. When they see an SUV turn up they may not get that same level of reassurance. We need to market it to explain that people are not going to get any less [of a] service.”

“I drove one of the Minis during the Olympics and it was great — people thought it looked amazing,” says Sarah Curtis of Edmonton fire station in north London. “The athletes swarmed over it whenever we pulled up. Crowds got out of the way, just as they would for a bigger fire engine.”However, the fire service is unsure of what to call the cars. They are classified officially as “instant response vehicles” but within the service they are known simply as “the Minis”.
“That’s not going to work if it really takes off and we have other [small] vehicles that aren’t Minis,” says Dobson.

This summer the London Fire Brigade will begin to assess the number of small vehicles it will buy — and their precise role — as long as its draft safety plan is approved by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.
Minis and SUVs are likely to be added to the fleet over several years, as the policy is gradually rolled out and assessed, and as fire engines gradually go out of service.
http://www.driving.co.uk/features/mini/8772

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/...cle1218397.ece

 

That is cool. I am not a big CM fan but that is sharp!!

 

Very nice. Heard about this. Very nice graphics package for the fire department.

A little bit like the MINI "follow me" versions.

 

It would look good if this Police UK MINI Countryman below attended an incident along with the Fire Departments MINI's.

 

 

Brilliant!