We have worked with a company called ORH which helps emergency services
around the world to optimise resource use and respond in the most effective and
efficient way. They produced a report which highlighted there were 35,525 incidents
in the area we cover from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2023. The daily incident
demand typically varies from between 10 to 30 incidents, however occasionally we
experience a higher demand typically associated with extreme weather conditions.
There is some evidence of seasonality, with higher demand in the summer months,
particularly June/July 2018 and June 2022, which is attributed to hotter weather and
common with other UK fire and rescue services.

During the pandemic lockdowns between March 2020 and May 2021 there were fewer incidents than normal across all categories. The number of incidents we attend has risen steadily across North Yorkshire in the five years to March 2023 (excluding 2020/21), driven by an increase in Special Service incidents; primarily incidents where we have provided assistance to other agencies, such as Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

Daily average incident count

Our fire engines are crewed in a range of ways. We have six shift fire engines which are crewed by wholetime firefighters who work shifts to ensure that the fire engine(s) based at certain stations are crewed 24 hours a day by firefighters at the station or on the fire engine. Seven day crewed fire engines which are crewed by wholetime firefighters who are in the fire station, or on the fire engine in the local community between 8am-6pm each day. Outside of these hours those firefighters are on-call from home, or elsewhere in the
community. They respond to emergencies when their pager alerts them, so must live within approximately four minutes travel time from the fire station. We have 32 fire
engines crewed by on-call firefighters who provide cover from home, their place of work or elsewhere in the community. They respond to emergencies when their pager alerts them, so must work or live within approximately four minutes travel time from the fire station. We also have two volunteer units.

We have a range of specialist vehicles which are designed to deal with particular incident types and the crews have specialist skills to go with them. These are vehicles such as Aerial Ladder Platforms for reaching tall buildings, specialist water rescue teams and power boats, specialist wildfire teams with off-road capability and line rescue teams for rescuing people from height.