Response times to fires attended by fire and rescue services, England, April 2019 to March 2020

Product Description

This release presents statistics on the average response times to fire incidents in the financial year 2019/20 (1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020) for fire and rescue services (FRSs) in England.

Key results

• The average total response time to primary fires in England in 2019/20 was 8 minutes and 43 seconds: a decrease of six seconds since 2018/19. Total response time to secondary fires in 2019/20 decreased by 24 seconds to 9 minutes 18 seconds compared with 2018/19. Response times have generally increased over the past decade
• The average response times to primary fires attended by FRSs during the COVID-19 lockdown showed two phases:
  • In 5 of the first 8 weeks of lockdown, response times were below the expected range based on 2015-19 data.
  • In 2 of the next 6 weeks of lockdown, response times were above the expected range based on 2015-19 data
• In half of the weeks of lockdown, response times were within the expected range based on 2015-2019 data.