The establishment of the Strategic Holding Area (SHA) at Pickering by NYFRS staff was a significant strength and a critical enabler to the response. The efficiency with which the SHA was established and operated provided a structured and centralised approach to the staging, briefing and deployment of resources.

This supported operational coordination, logistics and overall effectiveness, particularly as the scale and complexity of the incident increased. The SHA enabled the effective integration of Service, partner and national resilience assets, improved situational awareness and supported a more consistent and controlled deployment model across a large and geographically dispersed incident ground.

As the incident escalated following  25 August, the full utilisation of the SHA became increasingly important in sustaining the deployment of resources, supporting welfare and rotation arrangements, and maintaining operational oversight during the most demanding phases of the incident.

The incident also highlighted learning in relation to SHA pre-planning arrangements. Existing SHA locations are primarily aligned to national road networks and major transport routes. Due to the remote and rural nature of this incident, a suitable location required identification through operational planning during the days prior to the SHA being established.

Whilst this was achieved successfully and enabled the effective implementation of the SHA, future learning would be to broaden pre-planning considerations for SHAs in more remote and rural locations to support similar large-scale incidents.

Further learning was identified in relation to the operation of the SHA. Due to the geographical scale of the incident, which ultimately extended across approximately 25 kilometres, it was not always operationally efficient or proportionate for crews to report to the SHA prior to deployment to the incident ground. In some circumstances, this would have added in excess of an hour to travel times and delayed the arrival of resources where they were most urgently required.

This was not considered a weakness in the response. Rather, it reflected sensible and pragmatic operational decision making, balancing the need for effective coordination with the need to deploy resources quickly across a large and geographically dispersed incident ground.

The experience does, however, provide useful learning for future large-scale incidents. As incidents increase in scale and complexity, there is an opportunity to further develop flexible deployment models and associated procedures so that expectations are clear from the outset. This would allow resources to be deployed directly where appropriate whilst ensuring the SHA maintains an accurate common operating picture and effective oversight of resource movements. The learning is therefore less about addressing a shortcoming and more about refining arrangements to support future incidents of a similar scale and complexity.

Overall, the establishment and operation of the SHA represented notable practice and significantly enhanced coordination, resilience and the effective management of a complex and protracted incident.

What Worked Well
• NYFRS established an effective operation of the SHA, receiving notable
positive feedback
• Centralised staging, briefing and deployment improved coordination and
control
• Enhanced integration of Service, partner and national assets
• Improved situational awareness and consistency of information flow
• Supported a structured and controlled deployment model across a large
incident ground
• Played a critical role in sustaining operations during peak demand following
escalation.

Learning Opportunities
• Share best practice through the national framework (Joint Organisational Learning/ National Organisational Learning)
• Include consideration of SHA locations within wildfire pre-planning
• Consider the application of flexible SHA mobilisation arrangements for
geographically dispersed incidents.