Establishment 1972

Equipment                                                             Wholetime

                                                1 Water Tender Ladder                                       3 Station Officers
                                                1 Foam Salvage Tender                                       3 Sub Officers
                                                1 Turntable Ladder                                              3 Leading Firemen
                                                                                                                                36 Firemen

Establishment 2000

                                                Equipment                                                             Wholetime

                                                2 Water Tender Ladders                                     4 Station Officers
                                                1 Foam Tender                                                      4 Sub Officers
                                                                                                                                8 Leading Firefighters
                                                                                                                                44 Fighters

 Manning WrLs 5 and 4, and FoT 2 min crew per watch 9. The Establishment is split over 4 watches, Red, White, Blue and Green working an average of 42 hours per week on a 2 days, 2 nights and 4 days off rota.

Dundee’s new £130,000 fire station in Kingsway

<PHOTO> The new fire station. (Photo not on site)

Bailie William Millar, chairman of the Angus Area Fire Committee, officially opens the new £130,000 Kingsway East Fire Station, Dundee, this afternoon.
The new fully automated station, which has been in operation since September 6, will eventually house four fire appliances, although there are only three at present.
The new station heralds the completion of a new phase in fire service strategy.
Previously, the idea held was that one master fire station only should be in operation with up to 12 appliances housed there.
The flaws in this theory were soon realised, however.
In the event of a fire on the outskirts of the city, the appliances had a long way to travel.
Coupled with this was the risk that they might grind to a halt in traffic during peak hours, a long way from the fire.
Now the plans are for strategically placed smaller stations with three or four appliances, placed round the perimeter of cities.
Thus they can respond to emergency calls in every part of the city with speed, preventing convoys of appliances becoming entangled in traffic.
The opening of the Kingsway East Fire Station is in keeping with this idea.

Access routes

The station is located on the north side of the Arbroath Road, Kingsway Circle and offers six access routes for appliances giving cover to the docks and eastern part of the City.
On the triangular site, which was developed for prefabs after the second world war, the ground slopes for 13 feet, north to south.
Preliminary sketch plans based on a detailed brief by the Firemaster were started in January 1970 and submitted to the Scottish Home and Health Department in February of that year.
Work was started on the new station in August last year by W. H. Brown Construction (Dundee), Ltd., and was completed in June.
Accommodation in the new station consists of a four bay appliance hall, ancillary accommodation, drill tower and drill yard.
Ancillary accommodation contains offices, dormitories, dining, recreation and lecture facilities, quiet room, kitchen and ablutions, stores, boiler and generator room together with a breathing apparatus testing room.
This is on the same level as the appliance hall with the exception of the recreation and dining areas which take advantage of the sloping site, obtaining additional floor-to-ceiling height.
The four storey drill tower contains a hose drying compartment and hose practice target.

Three watches

Firemaster Alfred Jones is particularly pleased about the new fire station, which he says was “long overdue."
The last district station to be built was the Northern, Strathmore Avenue – 40 years ago.
Although the headquarters was recently built in Blackness Road, this was to replace the old one in Bell Street.
The ‘three appliances at Kingsway East’ at present are a water tender/ladder, foam salvage tender and a turntable ladder.
A second water tender will be added in January.
There, are three watches on duty at Kingsway East, each consisting of 15 men, one station officer, one sub officer, one leading fireman and 12 firemen.
About 70,000 Dundonians will be served by the new station—Fintry, Whitfield, Douglas and Angus, Craigie, Mid Craigie, Linlathen, Mill of Mains and Forfar Road down to Albert Street.
The docks area and some of Broughty Ferry will also be covered.
Firemaster Jones says the aim of the brigade is to get appliances to the scene of the outbreak within five minutes of receiving the call.
All calls go through H.Q. in Blackness Road and are relayed to Kingsway East, where a public address system means that the alarm and information can be heard all over the new fire station.

Time halved

A “failsafe” system is employed to make sure that nothing can go wrong with the call from H.Q. to any of the other stations.
Once the men have received the call they turn out and the doors are shut automatically from the Blackness Road headquarters—to stop any unauthorised “visits” while the brigade are attending a fire.
The time taken to get machines out and on their way to a fire has been halved within three years.
Firemaster Jones says that at that time, the time involved was 30 seconds during the day and 60 seconds at night.
Now the times are a very fast 15 seconds and 30 seconds respectively.
The massive increase in emergency fire calls also backs up the brigade’s insistence that new stations have to be built.
In 1948-49 calls handled by the Angus Area brigade totalled only 1300 a year.
Last year the number was 3250 and up to October of this year there have already been over 3000.
The population served by the brigade totals 274,000 in an area of 840 square miles.
The Kingsway East station is number 11 in the brigade’s area.
There has been a gradual recruitment of men to staff the new station over the past 18 months.
Civilian cleaners are employed.
Firemaster Jones sums up the aims of the fire service of today by saying that the three important items are the strategic placing of fire stations, need for top class communications and the need to provide firemen, who now enter with a far higher standard of education than before, with job satisfaction.
(The Courier and Advertiser, Wednesday, November 15,1972.)

If you know of any mistakes in this or have any additional information please let me know.