Hertfordshire firefighters took 16 minutes to arrive at house fire where person was reported as trapped, report reveals

That significant wait is almost double the national average response time to similar fires in predominantly urban areas, in 2023/24.

And it is highlighted in an inspection report published on Tuesday by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.

The report says that Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service is “failing to meet its response standards for fires”.

And it says the service “requires improvement at responding to fires and other emergencies”.

According to Hertfordshire’s own response standards an engine should arrive at any ‘dwelling fire’ within 10 minutes, on 90 per cent of occasions.

And where a second engine is required it should arrive within 13 minutes on 90 per cent of occasions.

But data published in the inspection report shows that in 2023/24 the service met the first fire engine target on 89.6 per cent of occasions.

And the second fire engine target was met during the same period on 85 per cent of occasions.

A further target that a third engine – where required – should be on the scene at a ‘dwelling fire’ within 16 minutes was met on 85.9 per cent of occasions – rather than the target 90.

Meanwhile, Home Office data included in the report suggests that in 2023/24 Hertfordshire average response to ‘primary fires’ was eight minutes and 48 seconds.

And that was slower than the seven minutes and 43 seconds national average for predominately urban services.

Primary fires are those in non-derelict buildings or vehicles, involving fatalities, casualties or rescues or those fires requiring five or more engines.

In response, Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue have revealed that the incident referred to in the inspection report related to a burning food that had triggered an automatic alarm, after a resident had fallen over.

They say the crew arrived 15 minutes and 24 seconds after the initial call.

And chief fire officer Alex Woodman says the fire control team made sure that the resident was safe “and not in any immediate danger” while waiting for the crew to arrive.

“When anyone calls us for help, we always act quickly to make sure that they get the support they need usually in under 10 minutes,” said Mr Woodman.

“Last year the service responded to 11,472 calls, and each of those calls was responded to by our dedicated personnel with the same level of professionalism, care, and urgency.

“I’m grateful to our Fire Control team for the skilful and compassionate way they handled this situation – they made sure that the caller was safe and not in any immediate danger in the extra six minutes it took for the fire engine to get to her.

“When crews arrived, they found a woman had fallen over, and her cooking had started to burn – which had triggered her fire alarm and an automatic call for our crews to attend.

“Thanks to them she was able to get some immediate help for a broken hip, and they stayed with her until ambulance colleagues arrived.”

In addition to response times, the ‘responding to fires and other emergencies’ section of inspection report also highlights the “low” availability of on-call fire engines.

Alongside whole-time fire engines – that should be available on 100 per cent of occasions – the county operates a system of so-called ‘on-call’ provision.

These engines are staffed by paid firefighters who are based away from a fire station when ‘on duty’, often working as firefighters as a second job.

According to the report, the service aims to have 75 per cent availability of its on-call provision.

But according to the inspection report in 2023/24 ‘on-call’ availability was just 55.7 per cent.

Whole-time availability was recorded as 98.3 per cent – with overall availability in 2023/24 recorded as 77 per cent.

Meanwhile the inspection report also catalogues efficiencies that Hertfordshire is making in its staffing models and station duty systems.

This includes reducing the number of firefighters in fire engines from five to four, which it says means the service can use its resource more effectively.

It records 31 occasions where inspectors were told that a previously unavailable on-call fire engine was made available “due to a spare firefighter being used more efficiently”.

And the report says that since the changes to staffing in March 2023 the service has recorded 210 occasions where fire cover has improved.