Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service

Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service area
Coverage
Area	Northern Ireland
Size	13,843 km²
Population	1,710,300
Operations
HQ	Lisburn
Staff	2,230
Stations	68
Co-responder	No
Chief Fire Officer	Peter Craig
Deputy Chief Fire Officer	Chris Kerr
Website	Official Site
Fire authority	The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
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The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) (formerly Northern Ireland Fire Brigade) is the statutory fire and rescue service for Northern Ireland. The NIFRS is overseen by the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board, which in turn is subordinate to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. NIFRS has a workforce of around 2,230 personnel.^[1]

NIFRS serves the entire population of Northern Ireland, an area of over 5,500 square miles (14,000 km²) with a population of 1.71 million people.

Operations

There are 68 fire stations in Northern Ireland, seven of which are full-time and seven are wholetime/retained. 7 are variable crewed between wholetime and retain firefighters during the day with retain firefighters only at night. 46 stations are retained, and one (on Rathlin Island) is crewed by volunteers. The Service is organised into four 'Area Commands': Western, Southern, Northern and Eastern. The Eastern Area Command covers Greater Belfast.

Emergency cover is provided by a current establishment of:

• 917 wholetime firefighters
• 994 retained firefighters
• 12 volunteer firefighters
• 58 regional control centre staff
• 208 support staff, plus 53 part-time caretakers

NIFRS Training Centre is located at Boucher Crescent, South Belfast and headquarters is in Lisburn, County Antrim.

Fleet

NIFRS' current operational fleet of fire engines consists of:^[2]

• 124 pumping appliances
• 12 rescue pumps
• 6 aerial ladder platforms
• 2 rescue tenders
• 3 operational support units
• 4 command support units
• 4 water tankers
• 3 all-terrain vehicles
• 11 prime movers with 25 pods
• 96 rapid response vehicles
• 3 special team vehicles

NIFRS firefighters are trained to deal with all types of fire incidents, as well as traffic collisions, building collapses, and various specialist rescues. The Service is also the enforcing authority for fire safety legislation.

As with other fire and rescue services in the United Kingdom, the NIFRS has been the target of frequent attacks while attending incidents. In 2010/11, the Service recorded 145 'hostile crowd' incidents without injury or damage, 27 cases of damage to fire engines, two cases of injury to a firefighter and 4 cases of combined injury to firefighter and vehicle damage.^[3]

Until recently, the organisation's name was the Northern Ireland Fire Brigade.^[4] The Brigade lost a number of firemen during the Troubles, including one shot while tackling a blaze in 1973 set during the Ulster Workers' Council strike.

Statistics

A ladder platform at Portadown

In 2010/11, NIFRS received 48,632 emergency calls, of which it mobilised to 30,784. The breakdown of these mobilised calls were:

• 3,618 primary (major) fires
• 10,968 secondary fires
• 1,621 chimney fires
• 2,095 special services, including traffic collisions (612), person release (326), lift incidents (134), make-safe incidents (391), animal rescues (124), chemical incidents (116), effecting entry (99), flooding (52) and other incidents (241)
• 715 other miscellaneous incidents
• 8,018 false alarms (due to equipment)
• 2,930 false alarms (with good intent)
• 819 false alarms (malicious)

See also

• Fire service in the United Kingdom
• Firefighters
• List of Government departments and agencies in Northern Ireland

References

1. ^ http://www.nifrs.org/about_us.php?sec=3105 About NIFRS
2. ^ http://www.nifrs.org/statistics.php?sec=13702 NIFRS Statistics
3. ^ http://www.nifrs.org/statistics.php NIFRS Statistics
4. ^ http://www.nifrs.org/news.php?sec=16&adate=all&news=1683 Name Change for the Northern Ireland Fire Brigade

External links

• NIFRS Official Site