David Spillett is acting Chief Fire Officer in Cork City fire and building control department in Cork, south of Ireland.
He is also the 500th online member of the Knowledge Network platform! We caught up with David to hear about his role, his involvement with the UCPM, and what he hopes the Knowledge Network can achieve.
Cork, Ireland, Europe
“Over the years we’ve responded to a lot of emergencies here at Cork City fire and building control department, natural and manmade, from transportation to severe weather. That’s a growing area of concern particularly in our area, we do get extreme weather events coming in from the Atlantic.
I first got involved in the Mechanism back in 2008. I've progressed through all the courses and exercises, right up to being Team Leader in EUCPTs, but most of my emergency management experience has been locally, regionally and nationally within Ireland.
The moment you get assigned to Mechanism training or deployment roles, the relationships start to grow and you leverage your prior learning and contacts to help.
I'm still in contact with some of the people from my first CMI course and I know that if ever I need them or indeed colleagues from other courses, it's a matter of a quick text to one or two of them and I get that assistance. It's nice to see that informal development being more formalised now through the Knowledge Network.
So that’s what’s valuable to me, the strength of the Mechanism is what it can do for Ireland but also what opportunity it presents to Ireland to get more involved. We've embraced that and trained up a core of people in host nation support roles and participated in opportunities across Europe.
The cultural side of it is so interesting too. The Mechanism brings all different types of people together from all over Europe with professional skills, but also their cultural skills. I’ve always felt that Irish participants bring a communal feeling with them, I've always been proud to see that as one of my own strengths as well.
It's great to be able to give something back to Europe and bring in any skills that we can. At the back of our mind is that as an island nation, at some stage we may in the future require the assistance of the Mechanism.
So it’s a two way street - we can give, and we can also receive from the Mechanism.
The Mechanism brings all different types of people together from all over Europe with professional skills, but also their cultural skills.
The Knowledge Network
I picked up snippets on social media about the Knowledge Network and its online platform and I heard more about it on a recent team leader course in Brussels. I said “right, the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is look into it, and I joined up and then I was the five hundredth member”.
If you look at the mission of the Knowledge Network, the first thing it’s doing is bringing together civil protection experts into one location, and that's a huge strength.
But its other objectives are very important as well in terms of making all of that information accessible and sharing knowledge about the Mechanism. So to make that accessible in the one location is a great development.
Fostering innovation is so important when you can see situations like the Ukraine crisis and the way the Mechanism has responded to that in such a varied and open, transparent way. Innovation means we have to come up with new ideas, new technology, new procedures to cope with all those new disasters. Those new challenges that we’re all facing, that Europe is facing.
The first thing the Knowledge Network is doing is bringing together civil protection experts into one location, and that's a huge strength.
I'm working on two national projects now, on high capacity pumping and urban search and rescue. We're a small group but we're using the experience and knowledge that we've picked up over the years from engaging with the Mechanism to improve things in Ireland. We're looking at all the good practice that people have been doing and using that in a simple solution for us. From a practical point of view, it's just great to see that being utilised and developed.
I would like the Knowledge Network platform to become a weekly – even daily - tool that I can draw upon. I’d find it useful as a database of likeminded fire officers / emergency managers across Europe that you can subdivide and filter by the speciality or area of expertise to find the people you want to connect with.
Speaking of the challenges, here in Ireland, we’ve noticed the effects of the changing climate. When I went into emergency management in 2008, it was all rain in the winter, or storms. But that’s changed. For example, we’ve had a very late Spring this year and the weather is very changeable of late.
The heat is the big one I see changing and last year was a very, very difficult year. It's becoming a growing area of concern, and with heat comes fires, and pressure on society from water.
So it's prudent that we do this innovation, this capturing of knowledge across Europe and use the knowledge from countries like Spain, France and Portugal who have been dealing with wildfires for a long time and apply it to nations that are not as experienced, like Ireland."
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