The Fire and Rescue Service has brought in additional measures to allow its personnel to carry out their operations while observing Covid-19 precautions.

A spokesman for the service said that ’a tremendous amount of work’ had gone on behind the scenes to put in the significant amount of additional control measures needed to ensure the safety of staff and the public during the ongoing lockdown.

Social distancing will be maintained at all times, except when crews need to respond to an emergency.

There are also enhanced cleaning regimes in stations, and decontamination of equipment.

Another key element of the new measures is the introduction of more Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), which includes advanced protection facemasks, suits and gowns.

The spokesman explained: ’The level of additional PPE we require will be influenced by the situation and the risk assessment of the incident commander, but even standard levels of PPE have been upgraded so that the risk of Covid-19 infection is limited.’

Since early last year, personnel had been training for working in difficult conditions wearing enhanced PPE - training which was put into practice in recent situations like the response to the major incident where a car had gone over the cliffs at Marine Drive.

Lockdown has not been excessively disruptive to the general working arrangements of the crew, with most staff (on retained contracts) responding either from home or their workplaces.

Full-time staff continue to work the night shifts at stations, as normal.