- recruited 50 on-call firefightersAs well as the more traditional roles of the fire and rescue service, crews have also continued to help with the roll-out of the Covid vaccination programme.Chief Fire Officer, Justin Johnston, said: “Over the course of the pandemic, we have helped to deliver approximately 500,000 vaccinations, with around 125,000 vaccines administered by our staff.
“I am incredibly proud of these achievements which reflect the efforts of all our people and demonstrate that we continue to be one of the best equipped, best trained and most professional fire and rescue services in the country.”There are some areas where the service has fallen below the performance of 20/21.
On-call fire engine availability has been below 80 per cent and this is mostly down to not having the number of on-call firefighters available.Sadly over the course of 2021/22 six people have died in accidental house fires - up from two people the year before - and 40 people were injured. This is up from 35 the year before.