UK Parliament committee calls for water companies’ duties to be defined — The Guardian

In the United Kingdom, the parliamentary Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has called on the government to legally define the responsibilities of water supply companies during major fires. The move follows reports from fire and rescue services about difficulties accessing water during droughts and wildfires, The Guardian reports.

Water pressure problems

Phil Garrigan, chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, told MPs that fires developed more quickly because of limited water supplies. According to him, concerns about water availability have intensified over his 37 years of service in the fire service.

During a wildfire in Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, where several homes were destroyed, it took nearly 40 minutes to refill a water tanker because of low pressure in the network. The fire service also described maintaining water supplies as a significant problem while tackling a separate fire in the New Forest in August.

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Proposals for water suppliers

Firefighters draw water from mains networks as well as open sources, including lakes and rivers. However, drought left water levels in them very low, limiting rescuers’ access. At the same time, services faced pressure to reduce the use of water from the network in order to avoid shortages for consumers.

A survey of fire and rescue services conducted by the National Fire Chiefs Council in summer found that 81% of respondents had changed emergency response plans in areas where there were concerns about access to water. The committee proposed recognizing water for firefighting as a critical public safety need, creating a national protocol for cooperation between water companies and emergency services, and requiring operators to assess and test their capacity to support such operations.

The Environment Agency estimates that, without urgent action, England could face a shortfall of up to 5 billion litres of water a day for public water supply by 2055. A government spokesperson said that preparing for wildfires is one of the priorities, and a government-funded conference on such fires is due to take place in Leeds on November 10–11.