Fire service response time hits 10-year high in South Yorkshire

Across the country, the average response time in the year ending to March was nine minutes and 13 seconds — the longest seen since comparable statistics became available. The Fire Brigades Union criticised the Government for not investing enough in the services as “every second counts in a fire”.

In the areas covered by the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, people had to wait for an average of nine minutes and 10 seconds for firefighters to respond to incidents. This includes time spent on the phone reporting the incident, the crew’s preparation, and their journey time.

The response time was up on eight minutes and 25 seconds the year before.

It ranked 12th out of the 44 fire services in England for response times.

The average time it took the service to handle calls was one minute and 29 seconds.

The fire service attended 2,232 primary fires in the year to March, which are the most serious with a threat to life or property. This was seven fewer than the year before.

Across England, the number of primary fires saw a 5.1 per cent rise compared to the year before, as the warm dry weather last summer caused more wildfires.

A National Fire Chiefs Council spokesperson said: “In recent years response times across all incident types have been gradually increasing as the range of incident types attended by FRSs has grown and resources have been targeted at higher risks such as fires in the home, where most deaths and injuries from fire occur.

“Attendance times for fires in the home have remained relatively static over the last 10 years.”

There were 677 dwelling fires attended in South Yorkshire in the year to March and 958 road vehicle fires.

Ben Selby, FBU assistant general secretary said: “Firefighters do everything they can to keep the public safe, but with fewer firefighters, fewer fire stations and fewer fire engines, it is no wonder that response times are deteriorating.”

He added: “Every second counts in a fire. It is about time that the government stopped counting pennies and invested in our fire service to protect people.”