Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service News

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) is changing the way it responds to Automatic Fire Alarms in certain types of buildings as of 01 August 2025. Following a public consultation, HIWFRS will no longer automatically send crews when there is an automatic fire alarm notification in buildings with no sleeping risk, during the hours of 08:00 and 18:00hrs, unless there are confirmed signs of fire. Automatic fire alarm notifications  This policy applies to commercial, no...

Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been appointed as the new Chief Fire Officer to lead Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service, becoming the organization’s first female chief.  Set to start her new role later this year following a handover period with current Chief Fire Officer, Neil Odin, Sabrina joins them from her position as chief of the neighboring fire service in West Sussex. Prior roles of Sabrina  Sabrina, who has previously held senior fire service roles with Londo...

Portsmouth City Council is investing £9.5 million over the next five years in retrofitting sprinklers in high-rise blocks as part of a £22 million package of fire safety measures. The announcement comes at the start of the NFCC’s Sprinkler Safety Week and is supported by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service working in partnership with the city. retrofit program The retrofit program was due to start but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The council carr...

The decision by Southampton City Council to fit sprinklers in all its high-rise residential blocks proves right with yet another fire quickly extinguished.   importance of sprinklers Firefighters from the newly combined Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service were called to a fire in a flat on the 21st floor of a tower block in Southampton this week. The first crew was on the scene within three minutes and found that a cooker fire in the kitchen was already out on arriva...

Infographics has announced that Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) is the first UK FRS to adopt the new FireWatch Bi-directional Mobilization Interface, with other services expected to deploy this functionality in the near future. FireWatch Mobilization Interface The FireWatch Bi-directional Mobilization Interface with Capita Vision is designed to enable greater real-time data sharing between the FireWatch Fire Service Management Platform, Capita Vision Mobilization System and on-applian...

This year saw fire and rescue teams from across the UK competing in the West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) Extrication and Trauma Challenges, which was held for the second year running at the Emergency Services Show, NEC, Birmingham. The two-day event which is split into trauma scenarios and extrication scenarios tested firefighters skills at first aid and trauma care, road traffic accident extrication, casualty care and more. As always, a high standard of skills was demonstrated by all the team...

Two psychological therapists from The Fire Fighters Charity will also be speaking on the the emotional impact of emergency medical response Responding to fires in tall buildings will be a key focus at this year’s Emergency Services Show which returns to Hall 5 at the NEC, Birmingham, UK from 20th to 21st September 2017. Russ Timpson, founder of the Tall Building Fire Safety Network will present a session in the Lessons Learnt seminar theatre (sponsored by UCLan) on tall...

Rod Hammerton steps up to replace John Redmond who took over as Chief Fire Officer at SFRS in the summer The new Deputy Chief Fire Officer of Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service has been appointed by Shropshire and Wrekin Fire and Rescue Authority.  Rod Hammerton, the former Assistant Chief Fire Officer for South Wales, steps up to replace John Redmond, who took over as Chief Fire Officer at Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service in the Summer.  After a short career in...

Vimpex supplied Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service with equipment and resources during training Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service has been crowned World Extrication Champions at the world’s biggest rescue challenge competition. The 16th World Rescue Challenge, which was hosted by The Fire Service College in Gloucestershire, saw teams taking part in a number of multi-vehicle road traffic collision scenarios where casualties needed rescuing - some of which had deterioratin...

Small Fire Units will help in fighting non-critical fires and reducing the number of false alarms The unit will attend non-critical fires, freeing up the larger fire engines to attend to life-threatening incidents such as property fires. A fire and rescue service based in Hampshire has launched a specialist unit to deal with small fires, in moves aimed at ensuring the larger appliances are available for larger fires. The new Small Fires Vehicle, which will service the Re...