Exclusive: West Yorkshire Fire Service report shocking rise in staff attacks

82 incidents have been recorded by staff since June 2016, a 43% increase on last year, and it's feared that number will continue to rise.

Of those attacks a third of them occurred in Leeds, whilst the districts of Bradford and Kirkless were also found to be hotspots.

The figures were uncovered as part of an exclusive Radio Aire investigation into how our emergency services are treated whilst responding to routine 999 calls.

West Yorkshire Fire Service told us numbers have generally dropped since 2000, hitting a low of just 40 attacks between 2012/13.

A breakdown into the types of attacks reveal fire crews were targeted with stones, missiles and fireworks.

'Significant concerns'

There are now fresh efforts to ensure these numbers are reduced by Bonfire Night later this year, by improving procedures and partnership work with other agencies.

Area Manager Nick Smith says: "As to why we've seen an increase this year compared to previous periods is something we need to better understand by finding out what's happening in our communities and to engage with them and those committing the offences to help them realise the risks they're posing to firefighters.

"The last thing they need is to be distracted from dealing with fires by being subjected to attacks."

Improving protective equipment and better training are just a few of the measures being introduced.

Here's a few of the actions taking place to address the violence:

• Communicating a positive image of the Fire Service in the community

• Taking part in community events to support this image

• Asking questions to firefighters at Performance Monitoring Visits (PMVs) regarding the e-learning package that was sent out in relation to reading the body language of persons and diffusing certain situations

• Encouraging all staff to use the SCIP when intelligence or other information is received for risk issues

• Encouraging any watch who place the information on SCIP to email other local stations to alert them to the fact that the address has been added and to make sure that they then view the SCIP for the details

• Consistently promoting the knowledge of Silent Witness cameras with crews and to the public at events etc. to discourage anti-social behaviour

• Where incidents do occur, publicising through the media any arrests made by the police and any sentences given by the courts