BY KIRSTY WATT
Concerns over the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s ability to attend incidents quickly in north Skye have reached a flash point as the organisation leaves its Uig crew without a station.
The Uig fire crew, a team of retained SFRS firefighters, have been left to store their clothing, equipment and computers in portacabins 200 metres away from the fire appliance which is in an old CMAL shed without electricity or water.
To access the fire appliance, the crew must manually raise the shed’s roller doors, a mission which takes between five and six minutes; if they need access at night, this must be done by torchlight.
The time delay, caused by the current situation, for the Uig fire crew to attend an incident is expected to be at least 15 minutes.
A local source told the Free Press: “It is honestly shocking. The support for north Skye is also made more precarious due to the fact there is no longer a fire appliance or crew in Staffin. If the Portree fire station is busy on another call, it just leaves the Uig crew to cover the whole of the north of Skye.”
The CMAL shed, which SFRS used to use as the Uig fire station, is due for imminent demolition as part of the Uig harbour redevelopment. Despite being given prior warning, the only visible action taken by SFRS so far to provide a new station for the crew, is the placement of the portacabins on SFRS land.
As it stands, once the CMAL shed is demolished, the fire appliance will have to be stored outside in an unsealed compound where it will be vulnerable to damage and theft.
Storing the appliance outside during winter will also mean the fire crew have to drain the fire-fighting water after a callout, to ensure it doesn’t freeze, before refilling it again to attend an incident.
The local source said: “The SFRS have had formal notification, prior to the recent Uig Pier works that the CMAL shed was to be demolished and yet they have decided not to provide Uig with a replacement SFRS facility.
“My personal view is that it is constructive dismissal. They would like to make everything so difficult for the Uig fire crew that everyone just throws in the towel, then they will say ‘sorry we couldn’t get a crew in Uig’.”
SFRS failed to comment on the current conditions the Uig fire crew are working in.
When asked about the future of the Uig fire station, Group Commander Mike Colliar of SFRS told the Free Press the site where the portacabins are is the “new permanent location” and “work is due for completion at this site, including the installation of a new appliance bay, by March 2026.”