"Renovations at the busy Footscray Fire Station seemed to go smoothly enough, until they tried to get the vehicles back in," says Peter Marshall, United Firefighters Union Victoria Branch Secretary. "Firefighters then found that the rear entrance was too narrow and larger vehicles risked sideswiping the next door block of flats."

The Ladder Platform proved to be a particular problem; driving this vehicle in the back entrance of the station has been assessed as an extreme risk, because of the dangers to property and people from the block of units which shares the driveway.

Blind alley
"MFB admin should have figured out that sharing a driveway to a fire station would not work," says Peter Marshall. "Nevertheless, the refurbishment went ahead and now firefighters have to be on careful look out for pedestrians and residents' vehicles when driving back into the Fire Station along the shared driveway. This is particularly difficult in larger trucks, like the Ladder Platform, which have poor visibility in restricted areas."

Options put to the MFB to fix the problem include having trucks do a couple of laps of the block to approach the drive way from one direction only, and structural modifications to the units.

Better decisions needed
"Widening the rear driveway entrance will help make turning safer for smaller vehicles," says Peter Marshall. "However, it looks like the MFB will now permanently locate Station 47's Ladder Platform at Deer Park Fire Station. That's more than 11 kilometres away and this will increase response times considerably."

"The people of Footscray, and the firefighters who serve them, deserve better from the MFB," says Peter Marshall. "Station refurbishments are certainly necessary but it looks like a major renovation at MFB management level is needed to ensure they get people in there who can make better decisions."