Maritime Services – Training, Exercises, Risk Assessment and Consultation

Incidents involving vessels in the maritime and inland waterway environment are not commonplace for Fire and Rescue personnel. They can be complex to deal with, with many special and often underestimated risks, ranging from small vessels and house boats, to large ocean-going liners and cruise ships, and can also include military vessels. Fire and rescue services should consider foreseeable risks within their area when planning to respond to incidents involving fires on board vessels.
Vessels moored alongside in ports or harbors fall within the statutory responsibility of the Fire and Rescue service. If a casualty vessel is situated outside of the statutory responsibility (i.e. offshore, and outside of ‘the area’ as defined under the Act) it must be recognised it may eventually come alongside and become a statutory duty of the relevant fire authority.
A fire on a vessel is a hazard because of the way vessels are constructed, with difficult access and egress and the possibility of fire spreading beyond the compartment involved through conduction via metal bulkheads and air handling machinery.
To fight any vessel fire effectively, first responders, be it ship board personnel or firefighters, must be familiar with the basic details of vessel construction, design and terminology; on-board fire protection and firefighting media; general issues such as liaison with other authorities; emergency plans; responsibility for control of operations; safety precautions and vessel stability.
Command and control of a fire on board a vessel presents unique situations for decision makers, and training availability in these complex conditions is minimal.
Some decisions are made that can have far-reaching consequences for the ship and its crew as well as economically.
Aim Fire Services offers extensive competence in this field, underpinned by 30+ years of experience in the maritime fire sector. The knowledge and expertise we can bring to support local port authorities, port state control inspections, ships in detention, Fire ad Rescue Services, ship operators and crews, shipping companies and the P&I insurance sector is second to none.

On board services

We offer on board training, exercising and Risk Assessment work to cater for all the hazards and risks in the shipping environment. From Electric Vehicle risk assessment to crew and command team training we can deliver.

Exercise Planning

Our key objective in any exercise simulations or scenario based training is to ensure your organisation’s plans are thoroughly tested, and when put into practice any meaningful outcomes are recorded into a recommendations report.

We will ensure the environment is a realistically simulated situation based on extensive knowledge in the Maritime sector, and the circumstances and exercise injects will be borne from real events, gathered from over 30 years of experience. Be it table top exercising (TTX), communication and command point exercising (CPX), or full scale live exercising (FSX) our approach enables you as the client to test or rehearse existing plans, policies or arrangements; test a new plan, policy or procedure; or to table and validate a new idea, process or procedure.

On board Ships Company has the opportunity to test their plans on a regular basis in their environment, but training can become stale, repetitive and unrealistic. This is where Aim Fire can provide sector competence, knowledge, experience, as well as added value and make improvements to all aspect of training.

Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) do not have this opportunity, so should consider the foreseeable risks within their area under the Fire Services Act 2004, when planning to respond to incidents in the maritime sector and especially involving fires on board vessels. The duties of FRSs are to make suitable arrangements to provide realistic and adequate training to all levels operational response. Personnel will need to be prepared to face a variety of scenario’s possible in the modern maritime environment.

Furthermore scenario based training is a vital rehearsal tool for any organisation to ensure their plans, policies and procedures are up-to-date, effective, communicated, tested and completely understood by the personnel responsible for implementing them.  Aim Fire training exercises assess the efficacy of all stages of preparedness and planning as well as staff performance in any given scenario.  Our methodology ensures participating staff and organisations get maximum value from their training and interaction, both during the active rehearsal and in the post-scenario follow-up debrief.

Aim Fire training methodology means we:

  • Use realistic and challenging scenario triggers and injects;
  • Observe and record activities during the scenario;
  • Observe and record key personnel and decision making;
  • Identify key learnings from the results;
  • Provide a recommendation formal de brief report;
  • Help clients act on the learnings by adjusting plans, policies or procedures;
  • Further test the reviewed plans by delivering further targeted training.

Please contact us for more information and to discuss your training or project requirements on info@aimfire.co.uk.

Any urgent requests can be made by calling +44 (0) 7817 465999.