Explore the Fire Service College: the UK's national resilience training site
Hume Jones, Managing Director of DFRP at Capita, takes us through the Fire Service College, where real-life environments test national resilience.
Fire and rescue services, defence organisations, and government partners cannot afford to learn how to respond under pressure during a crisis.
Geopolitical instability, this summer's wildfires, and events in the Middle East have arguably pushed national resilience up the agenda.
The video takes viewers inside Capita's Fire Service College, which makes this training possible. The college's 320-acre site, behind the wire, includes a concrete ship, an A380, and a collapsed-building rig, letting organisations rehearse real incidents rather than talk through them on paper.
Realistic training builds national resilience
Capita Managing Director DFRP Hume Jones's advice is not to be complacent: organisations should train under stress in realistic scenarios, and do it now, before a crisis makes preparation too late.
He adds: "It's really important that people get the opportunity to fail, to learn, to retest."
In Jones' view, collaboration matters as much as equipment. Shared exercises expose gaps, such as fire services using different coloured helmets, before they cause confusion in a genuine emergency.
Preparedness, he argues, is not a single moment but a capability, built through realistic training, exercising, and collaboration.