Planning New Standards of Fire Service Emergency Cover for the United Kingdom

For the past 60 years provision for emergency fire fighting response (i.e., fire cover) in the United Kingdom has been based on the density of the built environment, with highly developed city centres receiving the most provision for (and fastest response to) emergency calls and progressively less provision and speed of response being made for town centres, suburban areas, and country areas, respectively. (No cover is provided for remote rural and sparsely populated areas, where calls for emergency service receive a response from emergency resources allocated to more built-up areas. Unlike in built-up areas, there are no standards specified for weight of response and attendance time that the fire service must meet in responding to emergency calls from remote rural and sparsely populated areas.)Whilst these arrangements have generally worked well, fire safety legislation over the past 30–40 years has been effective in reducing the incidence of fire in public places, with the result that there is now a tendency for the present system to over-provide fire cover in city centres, whilst there is evidence of under provision in residential suburban areas, given that 75% of fire deaths currently occur in domestic dwellings.Against this background, it was suggested in 1995 that emergency cover should be allocated according to the geographic distribution of risk to life and property. This paper describes how the proposal has been taken forward. It is expected that the new risk-based system will be adopted nationally over the next 5–7 years.