Official Statistics

Fire incidents response times: England 2012 to 2013

Statistics on response times by fire and rescue services in England and severity of fires.

Applies to England

Documents

Fire incidents response times: England, 2012 to 2013

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Fire incidents response times: England, 2012 to 2013 - tables

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Details

This publication and accompanying data tables were released on Thursday 22 August 2013 by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The publication focuses on trends in average response times in England.

Statistics in this release are the latest figures available for England and relate to periods up to 31 March 2013.

The key points are:

Response times

  • in England the average response time to fires in dwellings in 2012 to 2013 was 7.4 minutes, 9 seconds longer than in 2011 to 2012 and 1.5 seconds longer compared to 2009 to 2010
  • the average response time in other buildings in 2012 to 2013 was 7.9 minutes; this is 3 seconds shorter than in 2011 to 2012 and 4 seconds shorter compared to 2009 to 2010
  • over the 10 years from 2002-2003 to 2012-2013, response time to both dwelling and other building fires increased by 1.5 minutes (25%) on average

Severity of fires

  • the average severity of fires decreased due to implementation of fire safety and prevention policy
  • the number of fire fatalities and non-fatal hospital casualties fell by 35% and 54% respectively over the 10 years to 2012 to 2013
  • the average area of damage in dwelling fires declined by 28% between 2002 to 2003 and 2012 to 2013

Updates to this page

Published 22 August 2013

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