FIREFIGHTERS in Enniskillen did not attend the scene of a road traffic accident last week because their pagers stopped working for more than 30 hours, it has emerged.

The problem, described by one fire service source as “potentially very dangerous”, meant up to 19 retained firefighters did not receive any alerts to incidents in Fermanagh due to a technical issue.

It’s understood that firefighters working on the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service’s full-time pilot scheme attended the scene of a crash in the Marble Arch area of Florencecourt last Wednesday. But despite requesting assistance from retained firefighters a second appliance from Enniskillen did not appear. Instead a fire appliance had to be drafted in from the Lisnaskea Fire Station.

And when the Police Service of Northern Ireland requested assistance to gain entry to the home of a vulnerable person in the Lisbellaw area the next day, none of the retained firefighters turned up.

When an emergency call is made in Fermanagh it is transferred to the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service’s control centre in Lisburn before being processed and tasked to the various fire crews. Each firefighter carries a special pager which alerts them to the incident and calls them into their station, such as Enniskillen, where they receive a briefing of the incident.

It’s understood the technical problem with the pagers last week was not discovered until around 10pm the following day, more than 30 hours later, meaning firefighters were unable to fulfil their duties.

Earlier this year Enniskillen Fire Station began a full-time service following what the then Health Minister Jim Wells said was a “fire station risk profiling exercise.” The new scheme was described as a positive way to “a reduction in risk for both the communities and the firefighters within Enniskillen town and the wider Fermanagh area.” Since May retained firefighters have been responding to incidents between the hours of 6pm and 8am, Monday to Friday. Last week, that did not happen.

A fire service source told this newspaper yesterday (Wednesday) that firefighters in Enniskillen were “very anxious” when they found out there had been a problem with their pagers.

“This was a very dangerous situation and had the potential to delay the actions of the fire service in Enniskillen. What if there had been a house fire? The firefighters were very anxious indeed.” Asked to respond, Eamon Gallagher, NIFRS Western Area Commander, said: “NIFRS experienced a highly unusual technical fault with our pager system, which impacted on our ability to mobilise our Part-time Community Firefighters within Enniskillen Fire Station for approximately 30 hours on the August 19 and 20. This technical fault was specific only to the pagers of the Community Firefighters at Enniskillen Station. This fault did not impact on our ability to mobilise the Day-Time Fire Crew based at Enniskillen Fire Station between 8am-6pm or any of the other four fire stations in Enniskillen District. No other Fire Station across Northern Ireland was affected by this issue.

NIFRS takes such an issue very seriously. We enacted our business continuity plan and put in place contingency planning arrangements to ensure fire and rescue cover in the area was maintained. This included contacting the Enniskillen Community Firefighters via their mobile phones to mobilise them to the fire station to respond to incidents. The other four fire stations in Enniskillen District (Belleek, Irvinestown, Clogher and Lisnaskea) all continued to operate as normal and were available to respond to incidents via pager message as normal. The Day-Time Fire Crew based at Enniskillen Fire Station between 8am-6pm could respond to incidents as normal. NIFRS has investigated this highly unusual incident and found a technical failing in the mobilising system which was since been corrected and tested. We are satisfied that this was an isolated incident and we have taken all necessary steps to prevent this happening again.”