Wildfires

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Call: 01743 260 200

Email: enquiries@shropshirefire.gov.uk

Reference

1688

Information Released

Yes

Received Date

31/07/2026 12:00 am

Responded Date

28/08/2026 12:00 am

FOI Topics

Assets, Finance and corporate governance, Incident and emergency response, Staffing and employment

Request detail

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting the following information.

If the information is not available for the entire period or in the exact format requested, please provide the data in whatever form you hold it, or the earliest year available. Likewise, if your authority does not hold data for one or more of the questions, please disregard those and proceed with providing the information you do hold. I would still welcome a partial response where possible.

1. What was the total number of incidents classified as wildfires, grassland fires, heathland fires, moorland fires or forest fires the service attended in each year between 2021 – 2026?

Year	Number of wildfires attended
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026 (so far)

2. What is the total number of the following items the service currently has in its inventory?

Item	Number currently in inventory
Terrain support vehicles
Wildfire beaters
Backpack blowers
Backpack water units
Specialist wildfire PPE
Water bowsers
Portable pumps suitable for use at remote water sources
Drones

3. What is the service’s target response time for fire incidents?

4. Please fill in the following table relating to incident response times:

	Average response time for attending fire incidents	Longest response time recorded to attend fire incident	Percentage of incidents responded to in target response time
2024
2025
2026 (so far)

5. How many times did the service request mutual aid from another fire and rescue service for a wildfire between 1^stJanuary 2024 to 1^st July 2026?

6. How many operational personnel currently hold in-date wildfire-specific training or competence? Please express this as a number and as a percentage.

7. Please provide:

a) the number and percentage of operational firefighters trained to undertake wildfire operations; and
b) the number of officers currently qualified to command, provide tactical advice at, or otherwise manage a wildfire incident.

Please use the service’s own training or competence categories and provide the names of the relevant courses or qualifications.

Response detail

Thank you for your request. Please refer below for the information requested.

What was the total number of incidents classified as wildfires, grassland fires, heathland fires, moorland fires or forest fires the service attended in each year between 2021 – 2026?

Please refer to the attached spreadsheet for the information requested.
What is the total number of the following items the service currently has in its inventory?

Please refer to the completed table below.

Item	Number currently in inventory
Terrain support vehicles	9 – Incident Support Units (Toyota Hilux)
Wildfire beaters	204
Backpack blowers	0
Backpack water units	46
Specialist wildfire PPE	0
Water bowsers	1 – 8,000 Litre Water Carrier (Bridgnorth) 1 – 4,800 Litre Water Carrier (Oswestry)
Portable pumps suitable for use at remote water sources	38 – Light Portable Pumps
Drones	2

What is the service’s target response time for fire incidents?

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service publishes response standards for emergency incidents and monitors performance against these standards. These are reported by geographical categories of Urban, Town & Fringe and Rural areas. Urban – first fire engine in 10 minutes; Town and fringe – first fire engine in 15 minutes; Rural – first fire engine in 20 minutes. Information regarding response standards is available within publicly available Service performance reports. Please refer to this document published on our website on page 6: Microsoft Word – 07 – CPIs Year End 2025 – 26

4. Please fill in the following table relating to incident response times:

Please refer to the attached spreadsheet for the information requested.

5. How many times did the service request mutual aid from another fire and rescue service for a wildfire between 1^stJanuary 2024 to 1^st July 2026?

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service does not hold this information in a recorded format that would enable it to be retrieved within the appropriate limit prescribed by section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

There is no readily available list of mutual aid requests relating to wildfires. Requests for assistance to neighbouring fire and rescue services are not recorded in a single reportable dataset and may relate either to attendance at a wildfire incident or to the provision of resilience cover while Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service resources are committed elsewhere. Consequently, identifying relevant instances would require a manual review of individual incident records to determine whether a request for assistance was made and, if so, whether it was connected to a wildfire incident or to resilience cover arising from wildfire activity.

Based on advice received from operational colleagues, there are approximately 2,500 relevant records relating to fire in open and field/stubble fire incident types for the period specified. Each record would need to be examined individually to establish whether a request for assistance was made and the purpose of that request.

We estimate that the work required to locate, retrieve and extract this information would exceed the appropriate limit set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Accordingly, this part of your request is refused under section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

6. How many operational personnel currently hold in-date wildfire-specific training or competence? Please express this as a number and as a percentage.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service does not hold a single verified figure for the number of operational personnel who currently hold in-date wildfire-specific training or competence.

Wildfire training records are held by staff group and may include duplicate counting where personnel undertake dual roles (for example, an individual may be both a wholetime firefighter and serve at an on-call station). The Service therefore cannot provide a single verified number or percentage without creating new information.

The following wildfire eLearning completion figures were recorded as at 12 August 2026:

Staff Group	Number Completed
Fire Control	6
Level 2/3 Officers	4
Wholetime Firefighters	38
On-call Firefighters (outside wildfire risk areas)	25
On-call Firefighters (within wildfire risk areas)	34

Please note that these figures may include individuals more than once where they undertake dual roles.

7. Please provide:

a) The number and percentage of operational firefighters trained to undertake wildfire operations; and

The Service has recently launched the NFCC Wildfire eLearning package for operational staff. Completion of this training is required by 31 December 2026.

The Service does not hold a single verified figure or percentage for operational firefighters trained to undertake wildfire operations because training records are held by staff group and may include duplicate counting where personnel undertake dual roles.

The relevant training currently delivered is the NFCC Wildfire eLearning package, comprising a number of modules including Awareness, Modules 1–6 and role-specific elements depending on the individual’s operational role.

Current completion figures are shown in response to Question 6.

b) The number of officers currently qualified to command, provide tactical advice at, or otherwise manage a wildfire incident.

As at 12 August 2026:

6 officers have completed the Advanced Wildfire Suppression and Incident Management Course (Level 3) and provide tactical advice and support at wildfire incidents.
9 officers have completed the Initial Acquisition Wildfire – FDO Course.

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FOI 1688
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