Wiltshire Fire Service preparing for winter floods
More extreme weather is bringing increased flood risk to parts of the county
Wiltshire's Fire and Rescue Service is calling for us to make sure we're prepared for flooding events this winter.
Group Manager, Dave Adamson, says more extra weather, linked to climate change, is presenting seasonal challenges, including flooding and wildfires.
He tells us that the service is preparing itself for the wetter winter weather and is urging us to do the same.
"We've just come out of a very busy wildfire season and now the focus starts to look towards some of the winter risks that we see, such as flooding. I think in years to come we're seeing flood become more and more prevalent depending obviously on where you live," he said.
He told us crews are refreshing their training and equipment for tackling flood events to ensure they're ready to go when they're called upon.
Dave said: "We have different levels of response. If it's lower level flooding and the standard fire appliance will attend, but we also have crews that are trained throughout the organisation that can respond and wade in in deeper water.
"And then in swift water, we have technical rescue teams that that are positioned in the North and the South of the organisation that will respond for people."
Dave added that flooding presents challenges to the crews when responding, with road flooding blocking routes to emergencies.
He said that the fire service isn't immune from needing to be careful when driving through flood water on roads, as it can cause issues with the vehicles they use.
"We've had issues, you know, with exhausts and other things when we've driven through floodwater ourselves," he told us. And while the vehicles do have a higher ground clearance than some cars and vans, there can be cases where crews are forced to divert.
"We will get informed through our control room and we will take alternative routes which could affect a couple of minutes on our response time," Dave said. "In really severe flooding situations, there's obviously only so much we can do. We are inundated with a lot of emergency calls during a large scale flooding incident.
"So the more you can do for yourself, the better, because in certain circumstances we may not be able to come to your to your property depending on how deep the water is and where we can pump it to."
He's advising us to check Government and local authority websites for flood warnings and to check if we are in an area at risk of flooding.
Anyone in a flood risk area is encouraged to arm their homes with flood protection, such as sandbags and floodgates, and to move key items to higher floors, if possible.