Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, formerly known as the Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade, is the
fire and rescue service
A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...
(FRS) for the
metropolitan borough
A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan districts within metropolitan ...
s of
Newcastle Upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
,
Gateshead
Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...
,
North Tyneside
North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It forms part of the greater Tyneside conurbation. North Tyneside Council is headquartered at Cobalt Park, Wallsend.
North Tyneside is bordered ...
,
South Tyneside
South Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, North East England.
It is bordered by all four other boroughs in Tyne and Wear – Gateshead to the west, Sunderland in the south, North Tyneside to the no ...
and
Sunderland, serving a population of 1.14million people across an area of .
Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Authority is responsible for the running of the service, as well as the publication of performance indicators in accordance with its legal obligations. In April 2017, Chris Lowther was appointed
chief fire officer
Chief fire officer (CFO), formerly often just chief officer, is the highest rank in the fire and rescue services of the United Kingdom. There are currently 50 chief fire officers serving in the United Kingdom in charge of the local authority fire ...
.
History
Tyne and Wear FRS was established as Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade in 1974 as a result of changes to area boundaries within the north east of England. Essentially, a fire service did exist through delivery of several smaller fire services established under the
Fire Brigades Act 1938
The Fire Brigades Act 1938 (in force until 1941, repealed 1947) was the primary legislation for Great Britain, excluding London, that placed responsibility for the provision of a fire brigade onto the local authority, and away from the insurance c ...
which made it a requirement for local authorities to provide fire cover to their area, although the smaller services were never united as one service as they are today until 1974. During the
second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, all local fire services in the region and on a national level created under the 1938 legislation were nationalised to form the National Fire Service, remaining this way until the
Fire Services Act 1947
The Fire Services Act 1947 was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that reorganised fire services in the United Kingdom. It disbanded the National Fire Service and returned the responsibility for running fire services to local authoriti ...
which handed control back of fire cover back to local authorities in 1948.
When the service was established in 1974, it brought together four small local fire services and parts of two others –
Durham County Fire Brigade,
Northumberland County Fire Brigade,
Newcastle and Gateshead Fire Brigade,
Sunderland Fire Brigade, and
South Shields and Tynemouth Fire Brigade
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...
– to form the service that exists today.
[
In June 2003, then Deputy Prime Minister ]John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...
submitted a white paper
A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white paper ...
to Parliament outlining reforms to the fire service in the UK. Part of the reforms outlined included changing the name of fire services across the UK to 'fire and rescue service', giving greater emphasis to the changing role of the fire service. In 2004, following further government publications, the name of the service was changed from Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade to Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, with post-2004 vehicle livery and all other parts of the service reflecting the name change. In 2006, the service had built six new fire station
__NOTOC__
A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire h ...
s under the Public Private Partnership
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
initiative, replacing older fire stations that were in need of extensive upgrade; the service had also built a new headquarters in Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
to replace the previous headquarters on Pilgrim Street in the centre of Newcastle as well as a new Technical Services building. In 2011, the location for the new Sunderland North fire station in Fulwell was announced, with the station expected to be opened in late 2014 and replacing the current station nearby.
Performance
In 2018/2019, every fire and rescue service in England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...
was subjected to a statutory inspection by (HIMCFRS). The inspection investigated how well the service performs in each of three areas. On a scale of outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service was rated as follows:
Fire stations
The service divides its area into three geographical zones. All fire stations, apart from two which are noted below, are wholetime-crewed:
North
West
East
See also
*Fire services in the United Kingdom
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
Emergency cover is provided by over fifty agencies. These are officially known as a ...
*FiReControl
FiReControl was a project, initiated in the United Kingdom in March 2004, to reduce the number of control rooms used to handle emergency calls for fire services and authorities. Presently there are 46 control rooms in England that handle calls fr ...
*List of British firefighters killed in the line of duty
This article is a list of British firefighters killed in the line of duty since 1900. As such, it only lists those firefightersThe term ''firefighter'' is used as it is not gender-specific. Most deaths will have originally been reported as the ge ...
References
External links
*
Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service
at HMICFRS
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), formerly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), has statutory responsibility for the inspection of the police forces of England and Wales, and since ...
*
{{UK fire service
Fire and rescue services of England
Organizations established in 1974
Organisations based in Tyne and Wear
1974 establishments in England