INCSCID - Elders


Kevin Arbuthnot, M.Phil, QFSM, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, West Yorkshire Fire Service. Kevin Arbuthnot started his career as a firefighter in 1975. He subsequently served in North Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, Warwickshire, West Midlands and in 1994 he was promoted to Assistant Chief Fire Officer, head of operations, West Yorkshire Fire Service and in 2000 became Deputy Chief Fire Officer.
Kevin Arbuthnot holds a postgraduate Diploma in Management from Coventry Business School and an M.Phil. from Sheffield Hallam University following research into fire brigade command structures. This work formed a major part of the background work in the development of the Incident Command System in the UK which was developed by a group which he initiated and still leads.
Kevin Arbuthnot is a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) and was elected to a Fellowship in 1999. He has been a member of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CACFOA) since 1994, serving currently on the Operations Committee. In 2001 he was appointed CACFOA’s national lead officer in incident command issues. He was awarded the Queen’s Fire Service Medal in the 2002 New Year’s Honours list. In conjunction with Professor Rhona Flin of Aberdeen University, he has co-edited and co-authored a book on incident command and critical incident decision making entitled Incident Command: Tales from the Hotseat, Ashgate, 2002.