Less firefighters in Derbyshire than there were in 2010
The worry is that firefighters may not be able to 'fight all fires'
There are 35 less firefighters in Derbyshire than there were ten years ago.
The 4% drop in the county has been a cause for concern as it has put additional pressure on the current staff still working in the service.
There have been concerns that if services aren’t at full capacity then firefighters will be unable to fight all fires, and the services are already seeing effects. The response times across all types of fires in England have risen since 2010, and fire audit and home fire safety check numbers in England constantly falling across this period.
Climate change and wild fires
The demand for firefighters is also increasing as climate changes causes more flooding and wildfires in Derbyshire, meaning that they require more attention than ever.
In 2019 at the LGA fire conference, a deputy chief officer stated: 'The public should lower their expectations that large wild fires can be tackled.'
Adam Taylor from the Fire brigades Union noted that services have already been put to the test with some wild fires recently. He said:
"We've seen large scale incidents, not just with fires but with flood related incidents as well With climate change we'll see an increase in large scale wildfires as well as flooding events."
Adam added that he wants to see the governement address the issue after seeing a noticeable impact over the last decade. He said:
"I fully expect Priti Patel to address this decline and set out a plan to fix it in her conference speech."
"We will always do absolutely everything we can to help people with the resources that we have. That's exactly why we became firefighters. Whatever is possible for us to do we will try and do. That hasn't changed, and I can assure you that won't change."