Crewing Arrangements Change at Harrogate fire station

 From 1st July 2025 North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service will introduce a change to crewing arrangements in Harrogate.

Following a comprehensive public consultation in 2022 on the Risk and Resource Model and subsequent approval by the then Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner in September 2022, we are moving ahead with plans to change the second fire engine in Harrogate from a tactical response vehicle to a standard B-type fire engine (this is a standard fire engine).

The original proposal was for the second engine to be crewed only during peak demand periods (daytime only with no night-time cover). However, in November 2024 a decision was made for it to be crewed during the daytime, between 8am and 6pm and be available outside of these through an On-call system where firefighters carry an alerter. This is known as the day-crewed duty system, which is widely used across the fire and rescue sector to provide a flexible and efficient operational response. We have seven other day-crewed fire stations within our Service.

The first fire engine at Harrogate will remain available 24/7, with no changes to its crewing.

This means that there will be;

• One standard (B-type) fire engine crewed 24/7 (shift crewed) and;
• One standard (B-type) fire engine crewed 8am-6pm every day by firefighters who carry an alerter and are on call outside of these hours (day-crewed)

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service Area Manager Ben Illsley said: “This change means we will have two fully equipped fire engines based at Harrogate fire station. This change will broaden the scope of incidents the second fire engine at Harrogate can attend as well as ensuring its availability 24 hours a day.”

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Notes 

The current tactical response vehicle fire engine, which has a crew of three, responds to a limited range of incidents and does not attend dwelling fires as the first fire engine. The change to a standard B-Type fire engine with a crew of four means it will be capable of responding as the first fire engine to all incident types.