Government cuts are to blame for a rise in fire-related deaths – a Sky News report

by danielbarker on 7 April, 2017

Government cuts are to blame for a rise in fire-related deaths in England last year, according to the union representing firefighters.

Official figures show that 303 people died in fires during 2015/16, up 15% on the previous year.

Response times to all types of serious fires also rose, in some cases by as much as one minute and eight seconds.

The Fire Brigades Union said the figures reflect the real impact that cuts have had on the ability of firefighters to do their job in recent years.

Matt Wrack, the union’s general secretary, said: “I think fire crews are increasingly angry about how they are being treated by this Government.

“Firefighters are praised when they rescue people, they deal with particularly difficult incidents, but all the time their job is being undermined by cuts.

There has been a record number of fire station closures, fire engines being cut and 10,000 firefighter jobs go.

“So that means people are left running the service on a shoestring.”

According to the Home Office, overall response times have increased gradually over the past 20 years.

The response time to the most serious types of fires, including dwellings and road vehicle fires, show an average rise of 31 seconds in 2015/16 compared to 2010/11.

By Dan Whitehead, Sky News Reporter

Content published and promoted by Roy Sheward on behalf of Dan Barker (Liberal Democrats) all at 144 Redhouse Lane, Walsall, WS5 0DB

   Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>