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02
Mar
On-call firefighter availability in North Yorkshire declines
The availability of on-call firefighters at North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue has fallen by 7% in two years, the service has said.
The Stray Ferret revealed in September 2025 that all on-call stations in the Harrogate district had suffered big declines in crew availability, which prompted concerns about public safety.
The situation does not appear to have improved.
Chris Watson, station manager at North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said overall availability at the service had fallen from 77% in 2023 to 70% at the end of last year.
Mr Watson told an online meeting last week chaired by Jo Coles, deputy mayor for York and North Yorkshire who is responsible for scrutinising the fire service, that the shortage of on-call crews has led to firefighters being moved around stations to provide cover.
He said:
As an alternative, it might be that we move a whole time appliance to that particular station. We do have an operational staffing reserve that we draw upon that we can move firefighters either in the evening or on a morning to stations that are critically under-staffed to be able to plug any gaps there.
On-call firefighters 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.
Mr Watson said that applications for on-call firefighters had increased year-on-year.
According to the service, 272 applications were submitted at the end of last year compared with 233 in 2024 and 192 2023.
Jo Coles, deputy mayor for police, fire and crime.
During the meeting, Ms Coles quizzed Mr Watson on what the service’s target was for overall availability of on-call crews.
Mr Watson said he wanted to see the figure increase to 75% over the next few years.
He said:
We have had a declining trend, even though we have managed to recruit more people.
With the measures that we are starting to put in place, I would like to see an increase towards 75%.
Ms Coles previously warned that the issue of on-call firefighters will continue to be a “challenge” in North Yorkshire.
In October last year, she said that David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, and the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority were looking at measures such as providing workspaces at fire stations for on-call firefighters to work their day jobs to improve recruitment and availability.
Last year, the Stray Ferret revealed that availability of crews in the Harrogate district had suffered big declines.
The figures from our freedom of information request.
The availability of Ripon’s nighttime on-call crew fell from 48% in 2022/23 to 17% in 2024/25. Crew availability in Summerbridge and Boroughbridge declined from 44% to 21% and 67% to 23% over the same period.
During an online public meeting chaired by Ms Coles in September, Damian Henderson, director of service improvement and assurance at North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said:
A significant amount of work continues to be undertaken with regards to on-call recruitment. If anyone can support their local fire station that would be hugely appreciated. We do appreciate that in a number of our stations there’s a significant challenge.
On-call firefighters are part-time, trained firefighters that respond to alerts on pagers at work or at home. They earn on average £7,000 a year.
You can apply to become an on-call firefighter here.
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