Understanding risk in our communities is crucial to achieving our ambition of Making West Yorkshire Safer. We do this by using evidence, foresight and our professional experience to identify the risks that we face as a service.

We assess how likely each risk is to threaten life, property and the environment. We model the level of risk in small geographical areas to create ‘risk profiles’. Using this information, we know where to base our people and resources and where to focus our prevention and protection activities.
We have created a database to categorise buildings in West Yorkshire. This allows us to plan for more frequent risk visits to the highest risk buildings while reducing unnecessary visits to the lowest risk buildings. This allows us to be more efficient in the service we provide to businesses across the county.

We have assessed every high-rise building in West Yorkshire, liaising with building owners to understand and identify any fire safety deficiencies including those which incorporate external walls.

We work closely with government and the National Fire Chiefs Council to ensure we are prepared to respond to any national work programmes in the future.

We work continually on assessing risk within the built environment to:

• Streamline and update our database on the changing levels of property-related risk.
• Develop the building risk review process to include new and medium-rise buildings.

Risk information is available on all frontline fire engines allowing our operational firefighters to access the most up-to- date risk information on-route to incidents or when required.

We must assess all foreseeable Fire & Rescue-related risks that could affect our communities. These may be local, cross-border, multi-authority and/or national.

To manage foreseeable risk, WYFRS updates and maintains a Foreseeable Risk Register.

This register is used to assess the emergencies that we need to respond to, and to ensure we are suitably trained, equipped and prepared.

• Fire - Fires can vary from small refuse fires to large industrial incidents or historical buildings.
• Technical Rescue - Major transport incidents, building collapse, rescues from height, rescues from water, confined space rescues and animal rescues.
• Environmental - Climate-driven incidents like widespread flooding and wildfire.
• Transport - Accidents on major roads, motorways, railways and airports.
• Hazardous Materials - Incidents at major chemical sites or chemical-related leaks, explosives and spills within buildings or on highways.
• Malicious Attacks/Terrorism - The threat of a terror or malicious attacks on people, infrastructure or transport

Our risk assessment complements the National Risk Assessment, National Risk Register, and the West Yorkshire Community Risk Register.
Threats and risks to our own business continuity are captured within our

Corporate Risk Register.
We will continue to learn lessons from significant operational incidents including local, regional or national.
 

Our fire engines and specialist resources are located and staffed to provide the optimal level of emergency cover based on local risk.

WYFRS Stations

• Wholetime Stations - 24/7 availability from the station
• Day Crewing – On station during the day, respond from home at night (On-Call)
• On-Call – Respond from home or place of work during the day and night

Educating people about the risks they face to prevent emergencies and reduce vulnerability.

Our firefighters carry out most of our prevention activity when they are not attending and preparing for emergencies. Data and intelligence will inform local decision-making to allow for a more agile response to any changes in risk at a district level. To deal with more complex cases we employ specialist prevention staff who work with our partner agencies to reduce risk within our communities.

All our resources are allocated across the county in proportion to the risk factors. Our prevention initiatives are targeted to the needs of the most vulnerable.
Our Corporate Communications Team play a key role in promoting our prevention campaigns making sure our message reaches the most vulnerable members of the community.
 
Prevention work does not end within the home; for example, we work with young people in schools and through community groups to keep them safe from fire, road traffic collisions and the dangers of water.

We have invested in our Youth Interventions Team who deliver many initiatives through the Prince’s Trust Programme and other bespoke training courses.

• Prevention Strategy 2022 - 2025
   

Promoting and enforcing the fire safety measures required by law to ensure buildings and occupants are protected should a fire occur.

We enforce the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005; the fire safety law that applies to nearly every building other than single private homes.

We have invested in our Fire Protection Team which allows us to assign the correct resources to the areas which are most at risk. We ensure inspecting officers have the capacity to deal with new and emerging risks within West Yorkshire. Our Risk- Based Inspection Programme utilises data and information to direct our resources towards those premises which present the greatest risk to occupants should a fire occur.

Our dedicated team is made up of qualified and experienced fire safety officers who are available to provide advice, support and investigate complaints relating to poor fire safety. We can demonstrate that through our initiatives or alternative statutory methods such as enforcement and licensing that every premise our inspectors enter, is a safer building when they leave.
 
Through partnership working with local authorities, we support building regulations to ensure new buildings are designed to incorporate relevant fire safety measures.
We know that business engagement is key to supporting businesses with their fire safety responsibilities ensuring they can grow and support the local economy. Our Business Fire Safety Advisor roles have been developed to engage with all business types, not just those which do not comply with legislation. These new roles will develop and increase our protection capabilities and will provide ideal opportunities for succession planning within the team.

We support smaller, local businesses to meet their fire safety duties individually and through the work we do with the Local Enterprise Partnership.

Additionally, our Fire Protection Team enforces legislation for the storage of petroleum-spirit by issuing certificates for petrol stations and licenses for the storage of explosives and fireworks.

Our work to reduce persistent false alarms has resulted in a significant decline in numbers over the last 10 years and continues on that trajectory.

• Protection Strategy 2022

Preparing for and responding to emergencies.

Our Fire Control Room receives all our 999 emergency calls, and our operators assess each call to determine what emergency response is required. Fire Control sends the fire engine(s) or specialist resource(s) who can respond quickest to deal with the emergency.

Our response time combined with the number of firefighters attending a fire is critical. More serious and complex emergencies usually need more firefighters to deal with them. We call this our ‘speed and weight of attack.’

We aim to keep the current number of fire stations and fire engines, to maintain our current ‘speed and weight of attack’.

Each station has a shift system based on the level of risk that the local community faces. Higher risk areas are covered by whole-time (24/7) stations. Lower risk areas are covered by
on-call stations. Those areas in between have a combination of both; day crewed (working during the day and on-call at night).

Our 46 fire engines are equipped to deal with the vast majority of emergencies. If the type of emergency is complex, we have strategically located specialist resources to call upon.

When a fire engine is unavailable due to an emergency or operational training, we have a system and procedures in place to relocate other fire engines to maintain a good standard of cover where it is required, most according to risk.

To ensure the nearest fire engines respond to the emergencies that occur close to and over our county border, we have arrangements in place with our neighbouring Fire & Rescue Services to share fire engines and other specialist resources if required.

• Response and Resilience Strategy 2022 – 2025
   

Being able to deal with major emergencies and disruptions whilst continuing to deliver our critical services.

Each of the Fire & Rescue Services across the UK can resolve most emergencies with their own fire engines and firefighters. However, occasionally, major incidents can happen that need the support of Fire & Rescue Services from other areas.

Measures are in place to allow us to call upon other Fire & Rescue Services to support us when major incidents occur.

Nearly all serious emergencies require a ‘multi-agency’ response. By working with our partner agencies in West Yorkshire, we can respond with the right mix of skills, expertise, and equipment to deal with the risks we expect to face.

We operate in accordance with the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP) so that we work effectively with West Yorkshire Police, Yorkshire Ambulance Service and other partner agencies at serious and major emergencies.

• Response and Resilience Strategy 2022 - 2025
• Learn more about JESIP