FIREFIGHTERS saw a surge in the number of call outs, figures have revealed.
Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service said it responded to 5,409 calls between April and September, up from 4,436 over the same period in 2024.
The increase was driven by a 68% rise in “secondary fires” which include most grass fires.
Chief Fire Officer Rob Barber said the increasing number of wildfires in Staffordshire is evidence that “climate change is real”, with hot and dry summers now becoming increasingly common.
Over the six-month period, the crews went out to 1,794 secondary fires, which are generally small outdoor fires not involving people or property – up from 1,067 last year.
The number of primary fires increased by a smaller amount, from 673 to 728. And there was also a 19% increase in road traffic incidents attended by firefighters, up from 364 to 433.
Staffordshire Commissioner Ben Adams quizzed senior officers on the fire service’s activity during a recent public performance meeting.
Mr Barber said:
“This year we’ve seen an increase across all of our incident types. This is closely related to the hot, dry year that we’ve experienced.
“The dry weather started back in February and continued all the way through until October. This created an increase in operational demand.
“The most significant area of change was secondary fires, such as grassland fires, refuse fires and fires in derelict buildings.
“The service has conducted a great deal of prevention activity throughout the year to try and reduce the likelihood of these fires, which included teams patrolling hotspot areas, delivering posters and engaging with local communities. However, despite all that work, the conditions meant we still saw a number of secondary fires.
“This is a clear sign of climate change. It used to be that we’d have a hot, dry summer once in 10 or 15 years – it seems to be every few years now, and we are preparing for that, because climate change is real and it’s hitting us in terms of our operational demand.”
Mr Barber said that while the surge in calls this year affected response times, firefighters still arrived at 79% of incidents within standard time limits. The target is 80%.
Demand peaked in August, with firefighters responding to more than 1,000 incidents and the average response time increasing to 11 minutes 32 seconds – up from nine minutes 55 seconds in August 2024.
The increase in demand has also had an impact on the fire service’s finances, with a £400,000 overspend on pay being projected for the year, although the overall budget remains “on target”.
Chief finance officer David Greensmith said:
“The overspend has been driven by the significant increase in operational demand that we experienced over the first six months of the year.
“The operational activity did start to reduce back to normal in September, as the whether became increasingly unsettled.”
Mr Barber said that climate change is also leading to increased demand for flood rescues, and that it is a “concern” that fire services do not receive funding for this area of work.
He added:
“Climate change is hitting us all year round, whether it’s the wildfires in the summer or the flooding in the winter, it’s a constant that we need to keep on top of.”
It’s strange as a child more than sixty years ago I remember wonderful summer hardly any rain ☔.
Isn’t it comforting to live in the past and not to have to worry too much about your future (and of the next generations)
Elizabeth memory never sees the bad times only the good.
I remember those lovely childhood summers. I also remember the dismal, dreary days of endless rain.
However, we can look at the Met Office’s records to find the reality: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series
Year on year things varied a lot – and still do. But if you look at the sunshine figures for summer in England, you can see that the trend has been upward since the 1960s. Average temperatures have also risen since then. In other words, it’s sunnier and warmer now, and that leads to more wildfires.
Thank you to Chief Fire Officer Rob Barber for sharing the reality of the impact of climate change locally. We might not want to believe it, but climate change is real, and there is plenty of evidence for mankind’s role in causing it. The best we can do is to face the facts and act now to try to tackle it. This is not something we are going to be able to solve with wishful thinking.