Interview with Watch Commander Kirk Cornwall

Kirk Cornwall is a Watch Commander at Broughton Fire Station. He has been a firefighter for almost 20 years and was seen in the recent action-packed five documentary ‘ Inferno 999’ tackling a variety of incidents with the crews from Amber Watch. Prior to the programme being aired we interviewed him about his involvement in the documentary.

Tell us about the emergencies we see you and Broughton Amber Watch being called to on Inferno 999.
Me and the crews are seen at six incidents in total during the series. The incidents include a fire at a lorry park which involved Liquid Petroleum Gas cylinders and a fire in a house that was being used as a cannabis farm. We are also filmed in the programme dealing with two vandalised hydrants, putting out a small fire on a housing estate and tackling a major commercial fire at a dance school which was threatening the bus depot, with Acetylene cylinders present, situated next to it.

Did you enjoy having the film crew around?
It was really interesting. Obviously, we were a little apprehensive at first but it proved to be a great experience and they filmed our watch over a period of 10 or 11 weeks covering both the day and night shifts.

Do you think the public will be surprised at the broad range of incidents you attend?
Definitely! I think the public are aware that we rescue people from fires but aren’t really aware of the other operational duties we carry out. The documentary also doesn’t show the amount of community safety work we are involved in. We visit people’s homes to give them free home fire risk assessments and fit smoke alarms. We also give talks in schools and are involved in a number of community initiatives.

The documentary shows that firefighters are sometimes subjected to hostility from youths. Is this a regular occurrence in your line of work?
Unfortunately, it is more regular than people might think. It varies from verbal to sometimes physical abuse. On the programme, you can see our particular watch have problems with youths when we are trying to fix a vandalised fire hydrant. When we were distracted some of the children tried to open the lockers on the pump (the fire engine) and steal some of our equipment. Also, at a separate incident, the cameras filmed one of our firefighters being hit on the back of his legs with a stick by a local youth as he was putting out a small fire.

In Salford though we run a range a schemes such as Firefly and FIRETEAM which encourage teenagers and young people to understand the role of a firefighter and also the devastating affects that fire-related crime such as arson and hoax calls can have on the community.

What do you find most rewarding about being a firefighter?
It’s the diversity of what we do. One day is never the same and there is a lot more to the job than people think.

You’ve been a firefighter for almost 20 years, how has the job changed since you started?When I first joined the fire and rescue service it was very much focused towards the operational side of what we do. The fire and rescue service seemed quite inward-looking. Now though we put a strong focus on the prevention of fires by carrying out home fire risk assessments and working in the community with other partner agencies such as the Police, Local Authorites, etc.

What does your job as a Watch Commander involve?
When crews arrive at an incident, I am in charge of managing our response to that incident, analysing the risks involved and looking after the safety and wellbeing of the firefighters. Our firefighters are highly trained though and they are excellent at instinctively knowing what the best course of action is to take at an incident so their professionalism often makes my job a lot easier.

Watch a clip from the documentary now (Windows Media/Audio File 12,528 KB). 

Read a transcript of the clip.