East Ayrshire has a new fire chief

Apr 17 2009 by Ian Russell, Kilmarnock Standard

EAST Ayrshire has a new fire chief - Craig Cook is the new Strathclyde Fire and Rescue area commander for East Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire.

He has recently returned to SFR following the completion of a three year secondment to HM Coastguard where he was the UK manager for the Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG).

The MIRG is a national strategy forming part of the UK contingency arrangements where teams of specially trained firefighters are flown by helicopter to fires on ships anywhere in the one and a quarter million square miles of sea covered by the UK search and rescue region.

Craig joined the Royal Navy in 1979 and served until 1984, joining Strathclyde Fire Brigade in 1985. He has served as an operational firefighter between the ranks of firefighter and station officer in six of Strathclyde Fire Brigade’s stations.

He has also served at the brigade training centre as an instructor on the merchant navy firefighting course.

During 1998 Strathclyde Fire Brigade set up the first full-time fire investigation unit in Scotland and he was seconded to the unit spending a year and a half as a fire investigation officer.

During 2000, on promotion to senior officer he was appointed as sector officer in charge of five stations around Glasgow’s busy south side. He then worked as a divisional officer in central command and was later appointed as head of personnel and training in the service’s west command.

Until his secondment to the coastguard he was working in SFR strategic planning directorate. He was also the project manager for the services restructure, aligning Strathclyde’s 113 stations from four commands to 10 areas.

Said Area Commander Cook: “I am delighted to have been appointed to East Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire. The area already has a very good reputation within the service and with our partner agencies. This is testament to the people who work here now and those that have previously worked in the area.

"I hope to continue to build upon the high standards already set and look forward to developing our relationships with our partner organisations such as the local authorities and other emergency service providers.”