New figures revealed by the Stray Ferret show fire stations across the Harrogate district are struggling to raise crews due to a shortage of on-call firefighters.

In Ripon, the availability of its nighttime on-call crew fell from 48% in 2022/23 to just 17% in 2024/25.

Over the same period, the availability of crews in Summerbridge declined from 44% to 21%, while in Boroughbridge the figure plummeted from 67% to 23%.

All local fire stations employ on-call firefighters, who are part-time, trained firefighters that must be able to get to a station within minutes when alerted by pagers. On average they earn £7,000 a year.

Until recently, Harrogate was staffed by two full-time crews based at the Skipton Road station day and night. However, in July one of its nighttime crews switched to on-call.

Ripon has a full-time day crew operating from 8am to 6pm but relies on on-call firefighters at night. All other stations in the Harrogate district — Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Masham and Summerbridge — are crewed entirely by on-call firefighters except Lofthouse, which depends on volunteers.

Every local on-call station has experienced significant declines in crew availability over the last two years — despite a fire chief saying last year he was “hopeful” of improvement.

Safety concerns

The figures have raised safety concerns at a time when the value of firefighters has been highlighted by their response to the Langdale Moor fire, which began on August 11. Firefighters from across the county were drafted in to battle the blaze.

Former firefighter Robert Windass, who is now the Conservative councillor for Boroughbridge and Claro, described the figures as “absolutely disgusting”.

He said:

Cllr Windass said the inability to raise crews increased response times and put people at risk. He pointed out that crews from outside Boroughbridge responded to a suspected arson attack on a house on Springfield Grove in the town in May.

Cllr Windass said the statistics only added to his concerns about the proposal to get rid of the Tadcaster water bowser and there were questions for Jo Coles, the Labour deputy mayor of York and North Yorkshire to answer. Ms Coles is responsible for scrutinising the performance of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.

The Stray Ferret has sent questions to Ms Coles about the figures but has not had a response.

Why we investigated

The Stray Ferret investigated the issue after being contacted by local firefighter sources saying they were concerned about how often local on-call stations were unable to turn out crews.

They felt the public was largely unaware of the problem.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service initially declined to reveal the figures in response to a Stray Ferret freedom of information request. It claimed the information “is not held in a format to be able to answer the question posed”.

But its refusal was overturned on appeal after we said there was a clear public interest in disclosure. The review response said:

We asked the Fire Brigades Union if it was concerned about the ability to recruit on-call firefighters but it did not respond.

You can apply to become an on-call firefighter here.