If there was a major disaster in East Sussex, the cool, calm, efficient and approachable Des Pritchard is the kind of man you would want in charge.

He was senior officer in charge at the inferno at the Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton, three years ago, the fire at the old Argus building in Brighton in 1999, the Hastings power station fire in May 2000 and last autumn's floods in Lewes floods.

Since his appointment as Chief Fire Officer for East Sussex on October 1, much of his time has been spent behind his desk at the headquarters in King Henry Road, Lewes, and at meetings.

But his impeccably smart uniform is only an arm's throw away, and at any major fires he will be there almost as quickly as the first crews.

He takes his uniform in his car and last week took charge of an accident on the M25 when a car crashed.

However, like all fire officers, he believes the best fire is the one that does not happen.

He wants to see the brigade take on a greater social role, involving hospitals, social workers, housing officials and community leaders.

He said: "I want to focus more energy on driving down risk in the community. If we can prevent a fire or an accident happening in the first place, then we will not have to respond to it.

"We can help to reduce hospital waiting lists. For instance, if a patient has been injured in a fire, that person may be taking up a bed which can be used by someone else.

"But if that person had not been injured in the first place, then it would free up the bed.

"I want the brigade to contribute by reducing those risks in the communities.

"But to do that we need to be properly resourced."

Mr Pritchard wants to see the brigade visit places which are vulnerable to undertake fire risk assessments and work more closely with the community.

He said: "We need to give people availability and confidence. I want to see fire brigade personnel installing smoke detectors in people's houses, talking about reducing risks.

"We already know which parts of East Sussex have more fires and whether they are caused by cookers, electric blankets or over-heating television sets.

"We can also apply the same thing to car fires. We know they are sometimes connected to crime. So we can help reduce that number by working together with the councils and the police.

"The whole focus is increasing the role outside what is traditionally seen as direct firefighting.

"I can look at a database of the number of car fires and the numbers which were started deliberately. This can give a correlation between a socially deprived ward and fire and arson."

Mr Pritchard also promises to fight his own corner for more resources.

East Sussex is not top heavy with administrative staff.

There are around 750 full and part-time front-line staff and 100 support staff. The brigade is up to its full complement.

But, with terrorist threats increasing, he recognises that, if his force is to respond with maximum effectiveness to any disaster, more resources will be needed.

He said: "We are discussing our position in East Sussex. As far as we know, we are as well-prepared as we can be, bearing in mind we are not sure what the potential threat could be.

"After East Sussex was the scene of a terrorist attack at the Grand Hotel in 1984, we have procedures in place.

"We are prepared to respond to incidents of magnitude but we do not know what the magnitude will be.

"The New York Fire Service could not deal with the attacks of September 11 because clearly it was outside their scope. It would be remiss of me to say East Sussex by itself could deal with something like that.

"We are part of the response for Gatwick. The holding area for Gatwick is over Ashdown Forest, and flight paths come over Seaford.

"We would respond to a major incident along with Surrey and West Sussex."

Mr Pritchard, who is married with a ten-year-old son and lives in Seaford, was attracted to the fire service through his love of sport.

A keen football and rugby player until a few years ago, he started playing for a fire brigade team in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, as two of his friends from school were in that team.

They persuaded the athletic grammar-school boy to join, at the bottom of the ladder. Now, he has reached the top.