6 July 2011

Firefighters from the North Wales Fire and Rescue Team were invited to carry out a training rescue operation at Dwr Cymru Welsh Water’s (DCWW) Five Fords Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) site.

Costain is currently undertaking a £23million scheme to construct a new sustainable energy plant and deliver improved sludge treatment facilities to the existing works at Marchweil in Wrexham.

A crew from Wrexham Fire Station performed a training exercise which involved rescuing an ‘injured’ dummy from inside one of the newly constructed Digester Tanks. The aim of the training was to assess which equipment the team would use in the case of a rescue and to provide a real life scenario of rescuing people at height.

This was a challenging operation due to the height of the digesters, which are 18.5 metres above ground, and having to deal with the temporary roof support structure which is currently in place.

Tim Williams, Crew Manager on White Watch, Wrexham, attended the training exercise. He said: “The exercise gave us an opportunity to familiarise ourselves with high rise rescue operations whilst observing on site health and safety regulations. The day was beneficial to both parties and was a good opportunity to strengthen partnerships.”

Paul Hunter, Costain Project Manager, said: “The team felt that the site provided a good opportunity for the Fire Service to carry out an emergency rescue operation. The visit has been extremely beneficial to our team who have been able to assess and validate the emergency access procedures that we have in place. It has also been reassuring to know that the local emergency services are fully trained in rescuing site operatives in this unique environment.”

John Madden, Costain Framework Director, added: “Anything that we can do to provide mutual benefit to Costain and local Welsh Emergency Services has to be worthwhile.”

 

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