Union warns South's fire services 'stripped bare' by cuts
More than 800 fewer firefighters in work compared with in 2010
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) are warning the UK's fire services are at breaking point after a decade of cuts.
New figures from the FBU show firefighter numbers have reached a new low with one in five firefighter roles having been scrapped since 2010.
This amounts to 11,680 firefighters losing their jobs over the past ten years.
Here in the south, Dorset and Wiltshire's force has lost 287 in that time (down 22%), Hampshire 280 (-17%), West Sussex 185 (-22%) and the Isle of Wight 61 (-28%).
Ahead of a speech by Home Secretary, Priti Patel, at the Conservative Party Conference, the union is now calling on the government to increase funding to restore those roles.
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said:
“After years of huge government cuts and staffing falls there is a real threat that fire and rescue services may not be able to deal with every incident, and fight all fires: for example, we have heard senior service managers state that the public should lower their expectations that large wildfires can be tackled.
"The cuts are weakening the day-to-day work of the fire and rescue service in every single area; they are making people less safe.
"They also pose a threat to the ability to respond to large-scale incidents - particularly if more than one were to occur at the same time."
Jamie Newell, a regional secretary for the Fire Brigades Union, said:
"When you reduce those firefighter numbers and you have to mobilise more fire engines to make up for the same number of people you would have gotten previously, that takes longer for us to get to an incident and close it down."
"This has a knock on impact on safety for the community because fires could be more developed by then, people would be stuck in cars longer et cetera."
"Ultimately, firefighter safety is public safety. You cannot have one without the other. To address these shortages and increased risk we need funding. "
"So the Government need to acknowledge this and change the course of the cuts they've been pursuing these last twelve years"
As well as the cuts, climate change has also increased the stress on services.
In some parts of the country, there are concerns that increased flooding, as well as moorland fires becoming more common, is stretching them close to their limit.
In response, a Home Office spokesperson said:
“Firefighters work tirelessly every day to protect our communities and the government has consistently given them the resources they need to keep people safe.
“In the last year, nearly 3,000 new firefighters have been recruited across the country and the Government has invested £2.3bn to support their lifesaving work.”
They also added that 2,845 new firefighters were recruited during 2019-20.