After 30 years service Alec Featch retired from Highlands & Islands Fire & Rescue Service on 21 July 2007.

Alec joined the Service on  22 July 1977 as a Fireman at Inverness Station and progressed through the ranks, having worked in virtually every department in the Service.

Alec spent a number of years working in the Staff Department where he built up a lot of knowledge of the policies, procedures and working of the Service, including Fire Investigation in which he was heavily involved.  Latterly Alec, in his most recent role as Deputy Commander in the Community Risk Management Department, worked hard to promote suppression systems and to have them installed in each of our constituent authorities.

At a ceremony attended by many of his colleagues, Alec was presented with a commemorative axe to mark 30 years service by CFO Brian Murray, who thanked Alec for his years of dedication and commitment to the Service and wished him all the best for the future.

Fort William RTC Team

Team Manager                         Station Manager Donnie Munro

Incident Commander                Watch Manager Chris Findlay

Medic                                        Firefighters Martin MacKenna & David Rodgers

Medic’s Assistant                       Firefighter Fraser MacDonald

Technical                                  Firefighters Clint MacLeod & Bryan Henerson

Medical Coach                          L.A. Paramedic Alison Stewart

The team was formed in January of this year to take part in the UNITED KINGDOM RESCUE ORGANISATION extrication challenges. This involved a qualifying round involving stations within the Highlands & Islands Fire & Rescue Service area which took place at the Service Training Centre in Invergordon. The top two teams from this event (Ness from the Western Isles, and Fort William) qualified for the regional challenges which were held at Hamilton Fire Station, Strathclyde Fire & Rescue.

Fort William won through to the National Challenge which was held over two days in Cardiff. They gained third place out of forty seven teams with the top twenty teams going through to the second days challenge. On the first day one casualty required to be rescued from a vehicle which had been involved in a collision, the casualty had to be rescued safely from the vehicle within twenty minutes.  The second days challenge consisted of more complex entrapments with two casualties requiring to be rescued within thirty minutes. Fort William was successful both days in safely rescuing the casualties within the time frame from the vehicles.

Fort William were in third place after the first day and on the second day with more complex scenarios ended up with a final placing of eighth position and the top Scottish team. This in itself was a great achievement competing against top teams who have been competing for many years.

Also competing in the Trauma Challenge were two Firefighters from Acharacle Kate O’Rouke and Craig Burton and two Firefighters from Achiltibuie, Diana Wilding and Alistair MacLeod.

The challenge requires a team of two to carry out initial life support to a casualty who has been involved in an accident and give a handover to on coming paramedics.

Both teams gave a fine performance with Acharacle gaining fifth place and Achiltibuie just missing a top twenty spot.

The challenges and events are organized by the United Kingdom Rescue Organization who is committed to improving rescue standards throughout the UK, bringing together other rescue services and developing their skills to serve the public.   

"The local report published by Audit Scotland following its performance audit of the Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service has been welcomed by the Fire Board and senior managers of the Service."

For the full press release and to download a copy of the Performance Audit Report, please click the link    Press Release

9 th February 2007 

^{On the 24th March 2007 Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service are to hold a car rescue extrication challenge at the Services Training School at Invergordon. The event will commence at 10:00 am following which 11 teams from the Service taking part. This event is open to members of the public, so feel free to come along and see this exciting event, there will also be static displays and other events throughout the day.}

Teams from the following Stations will be taking part in the challenge:

Fort William, Aultbea, Broadford, Kyle, Benbecula, Ness, Invergordon, Lochcarron, Spean Bridge, Acharacle and Achiltibuie.

Each team will be expected to safely remove a simulated causality from a crashed car using their rescue tools, and will have a time allocation of twenty minutes each. The teams will be marked by qualified assessors and will be judged against UK Rescue Origination procedures for several categories. There will be one overall winning team selected!!!

Following the event, the top two placed teams will represent Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service at the Scottish Extrication challenge which will be held in May later this year. Following this May event, the highest placed Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service team will represent the Service at the UK National event which is to be held in Cardiff in July.

Ness are the current Service champions and have represented the Service twice at the UK National Challenge.