Fighting Welsh Fire

The Brigades

North Wales Logo

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service

North wales Fire and Rescue Service protect an estimated population of about 678,461 people over 2,400 square miles. There is about 320,000 domestic and 24,500 non domestic properties in north wales that are within their jurisdiction. The service employs about 100 staff all together. The service attends aproximately 4,200 working jobs every year and around 3,600 false alarms of various kinds. The service works hard in promoting community fire safety as well as business fire safety. North wales service control is shared jointly with North Wales Police, this allows for much closer communication and a overall much better working relationship with the Police and Fire service. Staff in the North Wales 999 Control room deal with about 108,000 calls each year, many of which are serious or life threatening.

Mid and West Wales Logo

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service employs 1,300 staff and cover 4,500 miles, this equates to almost two thirds of Wales. Mid and West Wales is by far the largest by area brigade in Wales but employs around the same staffing levels as the other two brigades. The service operates a shared control room in Bridgend that is utalised by Police, Ambulance and Fire from both Mid and West Wales and South Wales. This is the first large scale 999 Control room of its kind in the UK and allows for an impressive unparalleled support and communication system between all of the emergency service teams in these regions. Mid and West Wales Fire also boasts the largest operational fleet in wales and the highest amount of station grounds of all the welsh fire services. Mid and West Wales Fire has a commitment to home and business fire safety plans as well as a massive commitment to maintaining welsh language standards in key roles across the service area. The brigade costs on average 14p per person per day and the 58 fire stations attend approximately 13,300 incidents per year. In the last 5 years the brigade has attended 2951 house fires, 882 non-domestic fires, 4919 road traffic collisions 4188 grass and forestry fires and 1748 flooding incidents.

South Wales Logo

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service

South wales fire and Rescue service employs approximately 1,700 people across their service area. These roles take the place of Operational firefighting staff, Service control staff in the joint bridgend control room, mechanics, transport teams, finance and all other manners of office workers to maintain the services operational capabilities. South Wales Fire and Rescue service puts a unique look on the firefighting role employing a large number of retained firefighters on salary based contracts which is the only brigade in the UK to do so. In South Wales Fire and Rescue Service there is 47 fire stations covering around 1,100 square miles. South Wales Fire is the only brigade in wales to service a large metropolitan area and in so face a unique set of challenges not faced by the others. In this they have gained valuble skills and techniques that they communicate to the other brigades in wales. The brigade services about 1.4 million with in their small locality and thus face an increased call count in comparison to the other services.