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Rainwater harvesting

Rural firefighting is a significant challenge in Cambridgeshire. Long travel distances and limited access to water make fighting fires in farm houses, farm buildings and crop fires extremely challenging.

The local farming community are always willing to help, providing us with access to water and assisting us with machinery, we are now looking to try and build databases of information to help us.

It often won’t be your farm, but that of a neighbour, or a site remote from where you are working. Knowing what is available for us to help extinguish fires, and that you consent to us doing so, will speed up the process of extinguishing fires, hopefully preventing damage and reducing the risk to lives and livestock.

Many farmers have already signed up to let us access their water bowsers. Another water supply we are aware of is rainwater harvesting tanks that some farms have on site.

If you want to help us by giving access to these sites we would really appreciate it. We hope to never use them, but they could make the difference if we do.

What do we need from you?

Complete our short form to tell us:

  • How to access the rain water harvesting tank (what3words)
  • The location of the tank
  • The tanks capacity
  • If the coupling is the same as the one we use to get water from water bowsers or different.

Once you have signed up we will send you a sticker to put on your tank, we don’t want to access the wrong tank, either because it doesn’t contain water, or because you don’t want us to access that tank.

We understand that the water tank may be empty when we try and access it, particularly in the summer, we will build that into our tactical plan.

We ask that if the tank goes out of service, you let us know, and that you try to keep the tank in good working order and don’t use it for anything other water, or remove the sticker if you do.

What will we do with your information?

We will store your contact details:

  • So we can send you the sticker
  • We will map the location of the tank, this will be held on a secure terminal only accessible from a fire engine, we store highly sensitive information on these terminals, and no one except firefighters will see the location of the tanks
  • So we can contact you in the event of fire if we use your water, and to check in every now and again to see if your still happy to give us access

 

What else do you need to know?

  • Fires happen at all times of the day and night, we may try to access the water in the middle of the night, this may disturb you, we have instructed our firefighters to be mindful
  • We may need to use the water even if the fire isn’t on your land, yet.
  • We may deplete your tank when you need it most, crop fires happen in the summer and that’s when you may need the water, but we will always try to exhaust other options first, and you may save lives or livelihoods
  • Our firefighters are highly professional, they are well trained and will drive carefully on your property, and ensure the tank is returned to serviceable conditions before they leave.