Revealed: Average wait time for fire crews in Northamptonshire and comparison to national average

People in Northamptonshire had to wait an average of 10 minutes for firefighters to attend emergency callouts, new Home Office figures show.

In the areas covered by the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service, people had to wait for an average of 10 minutes and eight 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 10 minutes and four seconds the year before. It ranked 19th 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 26 seconds.

The fire service attended 942 primary fires in the year to March, which are the most serious with a threat to life or property. This was 39 more than the year before.

There were 355 dwelling fires attended in Northamptonshire in the year to March and 281 road vehicle fires.

Simon Tuhill, Acting Chief Fire Officer said: “Nationally, response times are gradually increasing as the types of incidents we are attending is growing. We target our resources on incidents that pose the greatest risk and we have good response rates to these incidents.

“Northamptonshire is classified by the Home Office as a ‘significantly rural’ service and when you look at the figures across other comparable ‘significantly rural’ fire and rescue services, of which there are 17, our response time is under the average of 10 mins 29 seconds for all primary fires. For those fires in dwellings, which pose the most risk to life, our response time is 8 mins 56 seconds. This compares well to the 39 national ‘non-metropolitan’ services’ average response time of 8mins 58 seconds.

“Nevertheless we are committed to continuous improvement. We have commissioned an Emergency Cover Review to assess the current demands on the Service alongside risk in the county. The review will consider all aspects of how we deliver our service to ensure we continue to have the right support in the right locations to keep the people of Northamptonshire safe.”

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.

Across England, the number of primary fires saw a 5.1 percent 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.”

A Home Office spokesperson added: “The Government is committed to ensuring fire services have the resources they need to keep us safe, and overall fire and rescue authorities will receive around £2.6 billion in 2023-24.

“Decisions on how their resources are best deployed to meet their core functions are a matter for each fire and rescue authority.”