West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) is the fire and rescue service for the
metropolitan county
The metropolitan counties are a type of county-level administrative division of England. There are six metropolitan counties, which each cover large urban areas, with populations between 1 and 3 million. They were created in 1974 and are each di ...
of
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The service is the second largest in England, after London Fire Brigade. The service has 38 fire stations,
with a blended fleet of vehicles and specialist resources.
The service is led by Chief Fire Officer Phil Loach, who is overseen by the West Midlands Fire Authority. The Fire Authority is made up of 15 councillors who represent the seven councils within the West Midlands area.
The service's headquarters is located in Nechells in Birmingham, which is also the home to Staffordshire and West Midlands Fire Control. The control room, based at WMFS headquarters is the main incident management and mobilising centre for both WMFS and
Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service
Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service responsible for fire protection, prevention, intervention and emergency rescue in the county of Staffordshire and unitary authority of Stoke-on-Trent. The county ha ...
.
History
The service was created in 1974, when the West Midlands county came into being. Prior to its creation, each of the
county borough
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...
s in the West Midlands area (
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
,
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
,
Dudley
Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...
,
Solihull
Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe i ...
,
Walsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands County, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east ...
,
Warley,
West Bromwich
West Bromwich ( ) is a market town in the borough of Sandwell, West Midlands, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is north-west of Birmingham. West Bromwich is part of the area known as the Black Country, in terms of geography, ...
and
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...
) had their own fire brigade, the largest of which was the
City of Birmingham Fire Brigade
The City of Birmingham Fire Brigade was founded in 1875. In 1895 a new chief officer was appointed, Alfred Robert Tozer (senior). He died in 1906 when he was followed into position by his son Alfred Robert Tozer (junior) who continued in the positi ...
. WMFS was created by a merger of these, plus parts of
Warwickshire Fire Brigade
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service serving the county of Warwickshire in the West Midlands region of England.
The service covers an area of and a population of around 546,600 people. It employs 550 st ...
.
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, West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service was rated as follows:
Workstreams
The service divides its main functions into three areas: response, prevention and protection.
Response covers responding to emergencies, risk-based attendance standards, dynamic mobilising and Fire Control. Prevention covers their up-stream firefighting work that includes safe and well visits, community engagement, vulnerable persons officers and other individual and home-based fire prevention work. Protection covers their work around commercial and business fire safety, licensing and safety around buildings such as high-rise and apartment blocks.
Chief fire officers
The following people have held the office of chief fire officer:
*19741975: George Merrell (Chief Officer of Birmingham Fire and Ambulance Service from 1969)
*19751981: Tom Lister
*19811990: Brian Fuller
*19901998: Graham Meldum
*19982003: Kenneth Knight
*20032008: Frank Sheehan
*20092013: Vijith Randeniya
*2014present: Phil Loach
Fire stations and appliances
![PRL3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/PRL3.jpg)
West Midlands Fire Service operates 38
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 and employs 1,200
firefighter
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 ...
s.
It has no on-call
retained firefighter
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a retained firefighter, also known as an RDS Firefighter or on-call firefighter, is a firefighter who does not work on a fire station full-time but is paid to spend long periods of time on call to respond to eme ...
s. All fire stations within the service are full-time, and work on two types of shift:
* CORE - 10-hour day-shift, or 14-hour shift-night shift covered by four watches, comprising Red, White, Blue and Green
* LATE - 12-hour shift running from 10am to 10pm covered by two watches of Orange and Purple
Tettenhall is the only solely late crewed station.
Following the closure of the Birmingham Central fire station, Birmingham city centre is now covered by three fire stations: Aston located and covering the northern side, Highgate located and covering the southern, central and eastern sides, and Ladywood covering the western side.
WMFS currently operates a fleet of pump rescue ladders (PRL), technical rescue pumps (TRP), brigade response vehicles (BRV), aerial ladder platforms (ALP) which are also referred to as Hydraulic platforms (HP). WMFS also operate three business support vehicles (BSV) in addition to various specialist appliances and transport vehicles.
Abbreviations:
* PRL - Pump Rescue Ladder
* BRV - Brigade Response Vehicle
* HP - Hydraulic Platform
* TRP - Technical Rescue Pump
* TRSU - Technical Rescue Support Unit
* CSV - Command Support Vehicle
* ICU - Incident Command Unit
* BSV - Business Support Vehicle
* PM - Prime Mover
** USAR - Urban Search & Rescue Modules
** WSU - Water Support Unit
** GPU - General Purpose Unit
** HVP - High Volume Pump
** HMEPU - Hazardous Materials & Environmental Protection Unit
** MDU - Mass Decontamination Unit
** FDU - Foam Distribution Unit
** ISU - Incident Support Unit
Specialist units
Technical Rescue Unit
Operating out of three locations, a primary base at Bickenhill fire station and two other bases at Wednesbury and Sutton Coldfield fire stations, the WMFS Technical Rescue Unit has purpose-built facilities to train in all specialist rescue disciplines, providing a local, regional and national response 24-hours a day, 365-days a year to any Urban Search And Rescue (USAR)/widescale flooding incident as well as the support necessary for specialist rescue incidents.
The team is made up of a Station Commander, Administration Officer, Equipment Maintenance Officer, USAR Training Officer, Search Dog Handler, and four watches each made up of a Watch Commander, Crew Commander and six Technicians. A further four watches are based at Wednesbury.
With shifts running along with the same colour watches as the core fire crews, watch based personnel work a 96-hour duty period with 48 hours on full duty and the remainder on the retained cover. Retained personnel can respond to base within 30 minutes of being required for multiple incident deployment.
The unit makes use of a wide range of vehicles and equipment to carry out their role. Each TRU base has two primary response vehicles:
* Technical Rescue Support Unit – this 4x4 Mercedes Sprinter van provides a fast response capability for water, rope, and large animal rescues to get initial personnel and equipment to an incident as fast as possible.
* Technical Response Pump – based on a modified Volvo FL Pump Rescue Relay, this appliance carries enhanced rescue equipment at the expense of some firefighting equipment. This will respond to life-threatening incidents in the local station ground alongside the regular TRU callouts.
Additional vehicles and equipment that are based at Bickenhill:
* Four New Dimension Prime Movers – modified to be able to transport both New Dimension and regular WMFS demountable pods to the scene of an incident.
* Five Urban Search and Rescue Modules.
* One Trench Rescue Unit.
Additional vehicles and equipment that are based at Wednesbury:
* One Water Support Unit.
West Midlands United Kingdom International Search and Rescue
The
United Kingdom International Search and Rescue Team United Kingdom International Search and Rescue Team (UK-ISAR) is a search and rescue team from the United Kingdom that responds to humanitarian accidents or disasters on behalf of the UK Government. The current team structure is classified by the Un ...
(UK-ISAR) is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to respond to humanitarian accidents or disasters anywhere in the world. There are 18 team members in West Midland Fire Services UK-ISAR, split into a Red Team and a Blue Team. The role of the team is to respond to support the UK Government when deploying personnel and equipment in response to international disasters such as earthquakes.
When on international call, a deployment is made of a team of six including the team leader from one of the groups and a Group Commander to act as the Operations Commander or Deployment Commander in charge of the UK International Search & Rescue Group (UKISARG).
The team should arrive in the affected country within 24 hours of the disaster occurring and be self-sufficient for periods of up to 10 days. Extensive specialist training over and above that normally required for firefighters is given to all team members.
Twelve members of the West Midlands team were deployed as part of the UKISAR (United Kingdom International Search And Rescue) mission to Haiti in the wake of the
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
there on 12 January 2010. The team members were joined by two further members who had been in Sweden as part of a training exercise at the time of the earthquake. The team members were involved in the rescue of several people, including two-year-old Mia, who had been trapped for over four days.
Fire Investigation and Prevention Section
The Fire Investigation and Prevention Section (FIPS) was formed in 1983, and in 25 years has attended over 8,000 incidents.
FIPS investigates the cause of fire in a variety of different types of incidents including large fires, fires where the cause cannot be immediately determined, and fires where people may have been injured or died.
FIPS works closely with the Police, other Services, and organisations such as insurance companies when investigating fires. The officers also work on special projects including arson reduction policies and strategies, human behaviour in fire, the main causes of fire, and the compilation of any information to identify trends in fire causes. This information is vital when undertaking targeted initiatives and campaigns relating to the education of fire safety awareness.
Notable incidents
*
2013 Smethwick fire
At around 11pm on the night of 30 June 2013, a sky lantern landed on a Jayplas plastics and paper recycling plant on Dartmouth Road, near to the West Bromwich Albion football ground, at Smethwick, West Midlands, England, igniting the material ...
– 35-pump fire, 50,000 tonnes of plastic and
Jayplas plastics and
paper recycling
The recycling of paper is the process by which waste paper is turned into new paper products. It has a number of important benefits: It saves waste paper from occupying homes of people and producing methane as it breaks down. Because paper fi ...
plant on fire, sparked by a
Chinese lantern.
Recruitment controversy
In 2019, the WMFS was accused of using discriminatory practices in recruitment of new firefighters. Once candidates had passed a reactions test, they moved on to a numerical, verbal and mechanical reasoning exam. Media reports stated that
black, Asian and minority ethnic
A number of different systems of classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom exist. These schemata have been the subject of debate, including about the nature of ethnicity, how or whether it can be categorised, and the relationship betwe ...
and female candidates were deemed to have passed the test with a score of 60% or higher, but white male candidates were required to score at least 70%.
Member of Parliament
David Davies condemned the policy, stating "It's totally bonkers. They should just be picking the best man or woman for the job. They shouldn't be lowering the target for anyone just to meet a target." The service has target of 60% of new recruits to be female by 2021 and 35% to be ethnic minorities. In repose to criticism, the WMFS did not comment on whether it had different pass marks for different groups, but said that it was committed to diversity among the firefighting force.
[
]
See also
* Fire service 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 ...
* 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 ...
* West Midlands Police
West Midlands Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England.
The force covers an area of with 2.93million inhabitants, which includes the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, W ...
* West Midlands Ambulance Service
The West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust (WMAS) is responsible for providing NHS ambulance services within the West Midlands region of England. It is one of ten ambulance trusts providing England with emergency medic ...
* West Midlands Search and Rescue
References
External links
*
West Midlands Fire 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
Local government in the West Midlands (county)
Fire and rescue services of England
1974 establishments in the United Kingdom