Preventing

We believe the most effective way to save lives, reduce injuries and other losses through fire and other emergencies is to reduce the number of incidents that occur.

We therefore instigate and support the development of a range of partnership working initiatives aimed at preventing incidents.

We do this by focusing on risk reduction for vulnerable people and by raising awareness about risk to the wider community.

For more information visit our Fire Prevention page.

Education

We:

• Engage with local and national agencies to identify good practice to improve service delivery and community safety.
• Work in co-operation with the local community, talking to other organisations to identify and reduce risks from fire and other hazards which affect peoples lives.
• Visit schools and deliver structured educational fire safety programmes to pupils aged between 9 and 10, as part of the national curriculum.

We also provide several programmes to young people, including Safety Rangers and youth inclusion initiatives undertaken in partnership with other agencies such as the police. The highly successful Young Firefighters scheme that provides young people with an academic qualification has been shown to positively influence the way Firefighters are viewed by local community.

We also have in place risk reduction teams to access and engage with those people most vulnerable to fire. They provide information, education and where necessary additional protection measures.

Protecting

We have a dedicated enforcement team who provide advice, guidance and support in discharging our statutory duties.

Fire safety information is also available on the Fire Protection page.

We carry out operational fire risk assessments on non domestic properties.

We have Arson Task Forces, which work in a number of areas to reduce the large number of deliberate and nuisance fires started within West Yorkshire.

If you are concerned about a fire risk, contact your local Fire station or District Fire Safety Office. Telephone numbers for stations can be found on the Your Area pages and the Fire Safety Office numbers are shown by clicking here.

Fire Safety legislation and standards of service you can expect

The enactment of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) order 2005 means that the Authority has direct responsibility to enforce fire safety legislation in a wider range of premises than previously permitted. See Our Statutory Duties section for more details.

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority work to the Government’s Regulators Code in relation to fire safety enforcement activity.

Responding

We fight fires

If you have a fire or suspect a fire of any size, dial 999 and ask for “FIRE”. Your service provider will then put you through to the Mobilising and Communications Centre who will request further information before mobilising appliances as required. For further information please see the Preparing for Emergencies page.

All front-line appliances are equipped with state-of-the-art rescue equipment; in addition we have several specialist appliances which are mobilised to larger incidents. As well as our own fleet, we also have appliances provided by Government that deal with national resilience incidents.

On arrival at an incident, our trained firefighters will use their expertise to extinguish the fire and endeavour to minimise further property damage.

Following a fire we will provide advice in the form of a leaflet ‘After the Fire/Flood’, this should assist you in getting things back to normal.

We rescue people

Skilled firefighters using the latest equipment and techniques will respond to all incidents where people become trapped. Examples of these incidents are road traffic collisions, building collapse and lift rescues. Our firefighters are trained in first aid and trauma care and work closely with other emergency services to minimise distress.

We rescue animals

By working closely with the RSPCA if an animal is in distress we can, if necessary, assist with the safe rescue of the animal. For further information relating to animal rescues please see the press release from the Chief Fire Officers’ Association below.

Animal Rescue Press Release (64.41kb)

We deal with other emergencies

We are trained and equipped to deal with a wide range of everyday and headline hitting emergencies:

• Spillages of dangerous chemicals, which endanger life or the environment
• Local and wide area flooding
• Road traffic collisions
• Aircraft incidents
• Railway incidents

Some of the above responses are classed as Special Service Calls and therefore may be subject to charges –Special Service Call charges.

Our Five Year Strategy

At the commencement of each fiscal year a comprehensive range of annual targets will be set and published, against which performance will be monitored and reported. The achievement of these outcome reduction targets will be the responsibility of the Service Delivery Directorate.

The overall objectives of the Service are to:

• reduce the five year average number of deaths as far as possible by learning from each event and working with partners to minimise the risk to the community,  whilst having a “zero” tolerance approach to accidental fire deaths
• reduce the five year average number of fires started deliberately by working with the community and partners
• reduce the number of actual rescues carried out by WYFRS year on year from life threatening incidents
• reduce the total number of incidents attended by WYFRS year on year through the work done by staff and partners across the county
• reduce fires in the home year on year over the next five years
• reduce the five year average of the number of fires in commercial or public buildings by working with businesses to reduce their risk of deliberate or accidental fires
• reduce the number of false alarms caused by automatic fire detection apparatus in commercial or public buildings year on year by working with occupiers and taking enforcement action as appropriate
• reduce the number of injuries from fires year on year over the next five years
• reduce the total number of road traffic collision incidents attended by WYFRS year on year through working with partners to provide education, enforcement or engineered solutions
• reduce the incidence of malicious false alarms attended by WYFRS to less than an average of one per day through the use of education and prosecutions where necessary
• reduce the number of malicious false alarms not attended as far as possible through the use of education and prosecutions where necessary