STATION PROFILE A WATCH KILBARRACK

Atmosphere

“ e best part of my career was working in a one-pump station, and I was here for 12 years, with a very tight crew and great craic. We were always very busy, just as we are now, and being busy helps a lot with the atmosphere. ere is no time for boredom, because we are out all the time and the craic that goes on in the re truck when we are returning from a callout is great, and it really brings me back to when I started many years ago.”

When asked whether the new-look station helps with that atmosphere, S/O Gilbert is quick to say yes. “You can see it in the facilities, such as the kitchen and eating areas, which are like a modern restaurant kitchen now, and the crew will always congregate there for a cup of tea and a chat.” e introduction of the innovative study pods is highly praised by all members of A Watch, and while they enable crew members to take time away to themselves, they don’t take away from the team spirit, because the crew is eager to spend time together.

“ e crew go o to the pods to do their LearnPRO, but that is all,” S/O Gilbert says. “I’m 23 years in the job now and what I’ve noticed is that there are always phases in a station. When I was rst here, we went mad for table tennis, but now the crew has gotten a dart board upstairs and all they want to do is play darts. So, nobody is going o to a room to hide.”

Crew

e crew is relatively young, S/O Gilbert tells me, but have shown a very keen interest in developing their skills.

On a visit to meet D Watch at Kilbarrack station in the summer of 2021, Phase 1 of an ambitious refurbishment plan was well underway, but still in a period of transition. When I returned to talk to the crew of A Watch recently, the full scale of the development became a lot clearer, and both Station O cer Brian Gilbert and the man behind the redesign plan, FF/P Frank Brennan, were on hand to talk me through it.

Although he only started as S/O here in January, Station O cer Gilbert says he feels very much at home, not just because he lives locally but because this was the rst station he worked at when he joined Dublin Fire Brigade.

“I was an O cer in HQ before this post and was in North Stand before that, but this was where I was rst sent when I joined, so I have done the complete circle now and am back where I started,” he tells me.

“It is de nitely a young crew, with one of the crew, Adam McNally, not even born when I joined DFB, so that makes me feel old,” S/O Gilbert jokes. “But they all get on very well, and display a huge interest in the EMS side of the job, which is really important here because EMS makes up around 80% of our work.

“Our senior re ghter Gordon McArdle is currently at the Training Centre so we have James Eagers over from North Strand, we have one

Advanced Paramedic and another, Ciaran Halpin, who is here seven years, halfway through his course at UL and is one of two crew members who are currently studying to become EMS Assistant tutors.

“Because such a huge amount of our work is EMS, the majority of our senior crew members have picked up the mantle and become or are training to become APs, or tutors, or both. ey give a really strong helping hand to the newer re ghters, who are also showing a very keen interest.

“You have to have that interest in order to keep the skills and knowledge up. ere is also a great energy there with this young crew, particularly because as a one-pump station you are either on the ambulance or covering it.

“One-pump stations like this are a great place to start your career. You learn your trade, you get the experience, we are so busy but they all just want to learn and get that experience, and you get to cover all scenarios and incidents very quickly.”

Redevelopment

Talk turns to the station’s redevelopment, and as we walk through the building to the kitchen, the crew have all gathered for a cup of tea. “You can see how good the facilities are and how well designed it all is,” S/O Gilbert says, “so all we need now is a decent chef!”

From the games room, complete with the aforementioned dartboard, we can see the roo op garden that will be completed in Phase 3, and are joined by FF/P Brennan, who tells me about the plans behind the station’s redesign.

Having worked as an architect in Dublin, he moved to New Zealand following the 2011 earthquake to work on the rebuild project, and joined DFB in 2017 a er he returned to Ireland, and he was instrumental in getting the station laid out in a way that served the needs of the crew while enhancing its capabilities and energy e ciency. To enhance his credentials, he completed a one-year Fire Safety Engineer Postgrad in Trinity. “ at helped a lot,” he says. “It wouldn’t have done if my design didn’t pass re safety compliance!

“ e whole thing came about at the end of 2019 when renovations were planned for the showers and toilets,” he tells me. “All four Watches were approached and asked if we had any suggestions, and we were asked to form a Working Group with representatives from each Watch. With my background as an architect, I was made the lead rep liaising with the Maintenance Manager Andy Kavanagh and the construction crew. I worked well with Aidan Leavy who was on my Watch but has recently transferred to Phibsboro. He showed a very keen interest in how the station works, with his father also having been stationed at Kilbarrack. I was able to bounce ideas o him and lean on his experience.

“We got approval for our proposals for Phase 1, addressing the locker room accessibility, and from there we got approval for our proposals for Phase 2, which was the rest of the Ground Floor. We had large dorms previously, but we proposed converting them into the

LearnPRO pods that give us the space to study.

“We also switched the o ce location and now have the EMS supply storeroom adjacent to the ambulance bay so they can replenish without even having to go into the building.”

When I rst visited, COVID-19 was still very much a factor, and the individual pods proved to be a godsend in terms of allowing social distancing, but FF/P Brennan says that while they weren’t introduced because of the pandemic, they immediately showed the bene ts of having separate rooms.

“It certainly gave the idea of having these a push,” S/O Gilbert agrees.

History

On a side note, I mention a recent photo taken at the station of a group of veteran DFB members, and S/O Gilbert and FF/P Brennan explain.

“Brigade Training O cer Brendan Carroll and a group of othersAssistant Chief Fire O cer Richard Hedderman, D/O Brian Murray, and Sub-O cers Liam Wilson and Jim O’Neill included - came up to have that picture taken because they were being awarded their 40-year service medals and they had all trained here when they rst joined. ere is a lot of history to this station as a result of it being used as the Brigade Training Centre all those years ago, and a lot of people have come through here.

“We have here a good link between the past and the future, when you think about all the people who trained here, and now we have a station built for the future that is a blueprint for how a station should look.” e redesign of the upstairs section of the station is something FF/P Brennan is keen to illustrate.

“We have new female locker rooms – we don’t have any females on A Watch but there are four at the station – and we wanted to achieve a sense of equality, focusing on giving both their dignity and privacy. Times have changed and now we want a level of privacy that this new design a ords.

“ e female toilets and locker rooms are a comfortable space now. e female locker room looks exactly the same as the male locker rooms too, so it is all about equality. Everybody has the exact same facilities, standardised.”

Ergonomics

When asked how he managed to get so much of his innovative design proposals accepted, FF/P Brennan is magnanimous and says the key was in nding those things that made the most sense.

“It was di cult to get it to this stage because you have 40 other people with 40 di erent opinions,” he admits, “but the Working Group was e ective. You can lter it all back and go to the Maintenance Manager with a solid, sensible plan. It is a nice and comfortable place to work, and everything here is accessible and more ergonomic.

“What we looked for wasn’t crazy stu , so I think we got the majority of things we wanted because they made sense for the station. For example, the LearnPRO pod area is a compartment in itself and is separated from the muster area, so there is no contamination of dirty PPE coming into the other areas, the enlarged locker room with an adequate amount of lockers, which we didn’t have before… it all just made sense.”

When I ask what his favourite aspect of the new layout is, FF/P Brennan says: “ e single rooms are a big win for us. We are the rst station in Ireland to have these, but the main thing is that everybody enjoys coming into the station to work now, and all of the crew have a bit of pride in the station. A lot of the work I did on this was done on my own time, and the reason I did it was for the crew, so they could all have a bit of comfort and the facilities they need.”

On the back of this project, FF/P Brennan has also been given the opportunity to survey every DFB station and give design proposals to show how what has been achieved at Kilbarrack station can be achieved elsewhere.

Future

“Kilbarrack is a blueprint for what other stations can do,” he says, “and for me personally, it is nice to be able to combine my work as a FF/P with my former job as an architect.”

S/O Gilbert agrees that the pods are an excellent feature that he expects will become standard across the majority of stations, and are perfect for his particular crew.

“Anybody doing the extra bit of studying that many of our crew are doing can go o and do that because of these pods,” he tells me, “so the station provides the means for people to learn and further improve their skills and knowledge, which can only be good for DFB.”

When the crew gathers for a photo, eir dedication and love of the job stands to them as they, like their newly-designed station that holds a lot of history but has developed to become a blueprint for other stations, represent the future of Dublin Fire Brigade.

S/O Gilbert and FF/P Brennan are joined by other members of A Watch and their energy and camaraderie are immediately evident, and true to S/O Gilbert’s words, they are a young crew who all reply that they “love it” here.