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West Midlands Fire Service

HMICFRS region and HMI

  • His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services (HMI): Kathryn Stone is HMI for West Midlands Fire Service
  • HMICFRS region: The service is in HMICFRS’s Western fire region

HMICFRS’s assessment of West Midlands Fire Service

Our Fire and Rescue Service assessments give you information about how your local fire and rescue service has performed in several important areas. In our latest assessments of West Midlands Fire Service, we made the following graded judgments:

 

About the service

West Midlands Fire Service helps to keep 2.9 million people in the West Midlands safe. The second largest fire and rescue service in England, it serves a diverse population across Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

It works with partners and the community to identify risks across the West Midlands and uses this evidence as the basis for its Community Safety Strategy. The service has maintained and built on a strong collaborative relationship with other blue light services, local authorities and other partners throughout the West Midlands.

West Midlands Fire Service is administered by West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority, which comprises councillors from across its service delivery area.

Connect with West Midlands Fire Service

Key facts – 2022/2023

Service Area

348 square miles

Population

2.95m million people people
up2% local 5 yr change

Workforce (FTE)

99% wholetime firefighters
1% on-call firefighters
0.45 per 1000 population local
0.54 national level
down5% local 5 yr change
down4% national 5 yr change

Assets

38 stations
41 fire engines

Incidents

9.5 fire incidents per 1000 population local
10.4 national
3.2 non-fire incidents per 1000 population local
3.5 national
3.5 fire false alarms per 1000 population local
4.3 national

Cost

£26.61 firefighter cost per person per year
£26.96 firefighter cost per person per year (national)