Fire and rescue service operational statistics: April 2018 to March 2019

Main points

Fire and rescue authority personnel

• There were 2,096 fulltime equivalent staff (FTE) and 1,331 retained duty system (RDS) staff employed across the three Welsh Fire and Rescue Authority areas on 31 March 2019.
• This compares with 2,139 fulltime and 1,328 retained staff on 31 March 2018. The numbers of FTE and RDS staff have seen fluctuations since 2004-05, but this is the first drop in numbers since 2015-16. Of the 2,096 FTE staff, two thirds (1,414) were wholetime firefighters, a similar proportion to earlier years.

Health and safety

• During 2018-19, 9.9 shifts/days were lost per person to sickness for wholetime firefighters and 22.7 shifts/days for fire control staff.
• There were 144 injuries sustained by wholetime (including day crew) and retained duty system firefighters in the course of operational and training activities.

Operational activities

• During 2018-19 fire control handled over 80,000 calls in Wales, an increase of 14% on 2017-18.

Fire safety

• In 2018-19, Welsh Fire and Rescue Authorities completed 3,409 fire safety audits in non-domestic premises. This represents 4% of known such premises in Wales.

Community fire safety

• In 2018-19 the Fire and Rescue Authorities in Wales completed over 51,000 Home Fire Safety Checks; in 96% of these at least one member of the household was identified as displaying a risk.
• In 2018-19 the Fire and Rescue Authorities completed almost 18,000 Home Fire Safety Checks that also involved completion of non-fire related prevention activity. Almost 1,600 resulted in the Fire and Rescue Authorities making an onward referral to another organisation.
• Nearly 115,000 children and young people received a fire safety talk in school from the Fire and Rescue Authorities in 2018-19.