Fire brigade response times show slight improvement with Cork City leading the way
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The response time of fire brigades across Ireland to attend fires showed a slight improvement last year with the scene of just over half of all call-outs being reached in under 10 minutes.
However, response times to non-fire emergencies have been getting slower around the country, according to new figures from the watchdog body for local authorities.
A report by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) shows 16 of the 27 fire authorities in the Republic increased the proportion of cases in which the first tender reached the scene in less than 10 minutes during 2021.
The NOAC report reveals the scene was reached within 10 minutes in 56.2% of call-outs last year compared to 55.3% in 2020. It is the highest rate since 2017.
The NOAC figures show the Cork City fire brigade had the fastest response times in Ireland last year with 88.2% of fire incidents attended within 10 minutes. Other areas with a high proportion of fast response times included Limerick, Louth, Dublin, and Waterford which all operate full-time fire services.
In contrast, the scene was reached in under 10 minutes in less than 25% of call-outs to fires in Kerry, Roscommon, and Kildare, with the Kildare fire brigade attending just 18.5% of fire incidents in under 10 minutes.
The most improved performance was recorded by the Clare fire brigade with the proportion of incidents reached within 10 minutes up from 36.5% in 2020 to 52.3% last year.
The biggest drop in fast response times was in Tipperary where the share of incidents reached within 10 minutes fell to 30.7% in 2021 from 46.7% the previous year.
The NOAC report also recorded a slight decrease in the proportion of incidents where it took over 20 minutes for a fire brigade to arrive at a scene of a fire last year. It is the lowest level of lengthy response times in the past eight years.
The figures show it took more than 20 minutes before a fire brigade attended a scene in 7.6% of incidents nationally in 2021 – down from 9% the previous year. The Cork City fire brigade also had the lowest percentage of cases where the first fire tender attendance took longer than 20 minutes at just 1.4%.
At the other end of the scale, Kerry fire brigade had the highest share of incidents where it took over 20 minutes to arrive at the location at 21.0% - almost three times the national average. It also took over 20 minutes to attend the scene of a fire in over 20% of all cases in Wexford and Roscommon last year.
The NOAC report also highlights how response times to other types of emergencies, excluding fire, have been getting slower over recent years.
There was a slight reduction in speedy response times nationally to non-fire incidents – with 44.4% of scenes reached within 10 minutes last year compared to 46.6% in 2020 and 51.7% in 2014. It took over 20 minutes to reach the location in approximately 11% of all non-fire incidents last year.
The fastest response times to non-fire incidents were again recorded by the Cork City fire brigade for the third year in a row.
NOAC, which welcomed all improvements in response times, noted that six areas operate full-time and part-time fire brigades – Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, and Louth, while there are retained fire brigades in the other 21 areas.