North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has the slowest response times of all fire services nationally, figures have revealed. 

But bosses in North Yorkshire said the service's response times were down to being in England's largest county - but with the same number of stations as other predominantly rural but smaller counties.

Figures taken from Home Office data ranked the total firefighter response times in each area of England for the three months to the end of September, 2023.

The calculations from government figures took the average of call handling times, crew turnout times and drive times for all types of fires to determine the final response time and the ranking.

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Tyne and Wear topped the list with the quickest firefighter response time in the UK at six minutes 53 seconds.

The North Yorkshire service had an average response time of 12 minutes 37 seconds - putting it in last place.

'Incidents in the more rural areas significantly impact our average response times'

North Yorkshire is England’s largest county with an administrative ‘footprint’ of 3,103 square miles - while Tyne and Wear's is 208 square miles.

Damian Henderson, director of service improvement and assurance for the North Yorkshire service, said: “Response times are affected by things such as traffic and how close an incident is to the fire station.

“We cover one of the largest geographical areas of the ‘predominately rural fire and rescue services’ and have a similar number of fire stations as the other predominately rural services who cover much smaller areas.

“This means incidents in the more rural areas significantly impact our average response times due to the time taken to reach them by their nearest fire station. Many of our stations are crewed by on-call firefighters who respond to the fire station from their work or home to attend incidents.

“I would like to offer reassurance that we always attend incidents as quickly as possible and we are within three seconds of the average response time for predominantly rural fire services to dwelling fires.

“As part of our response principles we look at primary fires we attend where the average response times are above the average for predominantly rural services. This allows us to make proposals for improvement, where we can.

“We are also focusing extra prevention work in the more rural areas.”

The Press approached the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s Office for comment.

The full ranking of fire and rescue service total average response time in the three months to the end of September 2023, from Home Office data, is:

  1. Tyne and Wear - 6 mins 53 seconds
  2. London Fire Brigade - 7 mins 01 seconds
  3. West Midlands - 7 mins 19 seconds
  4. Greater Manchester - 7 mins 44 seconds
  5. Merseyside - 7 mins 59 seconds
  6. Cleveland Fire Brigade - 8 mins 02 seconds
  7. Lancashire - 8 mins 27 seconds
  8. Royal Berkshire - 8 mins 40 seconds
  9. South Yorkshire - 8 mins 50 seconds
  10. Hertfordshire - 8 mins 55 seconds
  11. West Yorkshire - 9 mins 05 seconds
  12. County Durham and Darlington - 9 mins 10 seconds
  13. East Sussex - 9 mins 19 seconds
  14. Humberside - 9 mins 27 seconds
  15. West Sussex - 9 mins 32 seconds
  16. Cheshire - 9 mins 43 seconds
  17. Avon - 9 mins 49 seconds
  18. Hampshire and Isle of Wight - 10 mins 06 seconds
  19. Buckinghamshire - 10 mins 12 seconds
  20. Leicestershire - 10 mins 14 seconds
  21. Surrey - 10 mins 15 seconds
  22. Nottinghamshire - 10 mins 24 seconds
  23. Northamptonshire - 10 mins 24 seconds
  24. Bedfordshire - 10 mins 40 seconds
  25. Essex County - 10 mins 44 seconds
  26. Derbyshire - 10 mins 44 seconds
  27. Devon and Somerset - 10 mins 44 seconds
  28. Dorset and Wiltshire - 10 mins 47 seconds
  29. Warwickshire - 10 mins 48 seconds
  30. Cambridgeshire - 10 mins 51 seconds
  31. Shropshire - 11 mins 00 seconds
  32. Kent - 11 mins 01 seconds
  33. Norfolk - 11 mins 02 seconds
  34. Gloucestershire - 11 mins 04 seconds
  35. Oxfordshire - 11 mins 14 seconds
  36. Cumbria - 11 mins 18 seconds
  37. Lincolnshire - 11 mins 24 seconds
  38. Staffordshire - 11 mins 28 seconds
  39. Suffolk - 12 mins 02 seconds
  40. Northumberland - 12 mins 10 seconds
  41. Hereford and Worcester - 12 mins 19 seconds
  42. Cornwall - 12 mins 28 seconds
  43. North Yorkshire - 12 mins 37 seconds