TWO remote communities are warning that plans to disband their local fire units will risk endangering lives, despite the service receiving only four emergency calls over the past five years.
Locals claim members of the public will be tempted to risk their own lives to tackle blazes.
It comes as Highlands and Islands Fire Board prepares to consider a plan to disband the local community units in Knoydart and on Eigg which the fire chief says would cost more than £400,000 to retain.
He says Knoydart has only three firefighters and has had only three emergency calls in the previous five years while the four-strong Eigg team had only one. He says both teams are struggling to attract recruits.
However, residents say there was a house fire on Knoydart some years ago, and members of the unit did manage to put it out before the Mallaig team arrived and crucially stopped other members of the community who wanted to become involved.
Grant Holroyd, second in command at Knoydart, said: "We are not trained or equipped to the highest level and accept it doesn't make sense to spend the money doing so.
"But what we think does make sense is to leave a team here which in the event of a fire can establish a water supply, get pumps set up, manage the public, stop people going into the buildings and if we can get water on to the fire safely, do so. They should be training us to do what is required without going into a burning building."
Stewart Edgar, chief fire officer of Highlands and Islands Fire Service, said £210,000 would have to be invested in each unit they were to continue and revenue costs for the previous five years were around £10,000 in both.
Mr Edgar, in a report to the fire board, says that in his professional opinion due to the inability of Knoydart and Eigg "to meet the board's agreed sustainability criteria, combined with very low levels of activity and risk", they should be deemed unsustainable and that emergency cover would continue to be provided by ferry from Mallaig.
Local people doubted fire service estimates the Mallaig-based team could get to a fire in Knoydart in 50 minutes and one in Eigg in 90 minutes.
Mr Holroyd added: "Other information they are working on is inaccurate. The population they say is 90 whereas it is more like 120. They suggest there are only about 20 bed spaces for overnight visitors, but on occasions there would be 200 here."
Maggie Fyffe, secretary of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust which owns the island, added: "There is still definitely a role for the fire unit to play here. The problem is that without a presence the local people will act themselves.
"It could be hours before the Mallaig team get over, by which time it is too late."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article