About West Midlands Fire Service

West Midlands Fire Service is the second largest fire and rescue service in England, serving an area of 902km square and a population of over 2.9 million people.

We serve one of the most diverse and multi-cultural communities in the country, spread across seven local authorities, which are Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Our region contains some of the most deprived communities anywhere in the country, where socio-economic and health factors mean the risk of fire and other emergencies is particularly high. At the same time our major urban centres and industrial areas contain some of the highest risk infrastructure in the UK.

We make use of a blended fleet of 70-plus different vehicles to ensure we are able to respond to emergencies, including fire engines (Pump Rescue Ladders/PRLs), Brigade Response Vehicles and specialist vehicles such as aerial hydraulic platforms.

Did you know...?

Rescues, road traffic collisions and other emergencies now making up a bigger proportion of our 999 responses than fires.

We have 38 fire stations situated strategically across the West Midlands, as well as our headquarters based in central Birmingham. These are staffed by over 1,350 firefighters and officers, supported by over 50 staff in West Midlands and Staffordshire Fire Control, and 450 specialist support staff.

A graphic with a blue background and a representation of our fire stations

38

Fire
Stations

A graphic with a blue background and 3 animated style characters representing our firefighters

1350

Fire-
fighters*

A graphic with a blue background and 3 animated style characters representing Fire Control staff

55

Fire Control
personnel *

A graphic with a blue background and 3 animated style characters representing our support staff

350

Specialist
Support
Staff *

A graphic with a blue background with a depiction of a brigade response vehicle, fire engine, and hydraulic aerial platform.

70

Fleet
Vehicles *

*Numbers are approximate

Our strategic commitments

The goals that we set as a service may change from year to year, or even week to week, as we adapt to the challenges and risks that we face. However, as a fire and rescue service and a
public body we have several strategic commitments we will always deliver for the people of the West Midlands. These derive from our statutory duties and the public’s expectation of the service. Our communities always be reassured that:

A heart with 3 people inside surrounded by two caring hands

Our communities

We are working with our communities and partners to make them safer and healthier through prevention of fires and other emergencies

First aid cross, denoting protection

Protect life and property

We are working with our communities and partners to make them safer and healthier through prevention of fires and other emergencies

A bell with indicators that it's ringing

Assertive, safe and effective

We are working with our communities and partners to make them safer and healthier through prevention of fires and other emergencies

A shield with a person inside

Safeguarding our people

We are working with our communities and partners to make them safer and healthier through prevention of fires and other emergencies

A range of small graphics representing people in different rainbow colours

Positive culture and values

We are working with our communities and partners to make them safer and healthier through prevention of fires and other emergencies

A pound symbol

Value for money

We are working with our communities and partners to make them safer and healthier through prevention of fires and other emergencies

How we keep the West Midlands safe

Our vision

"

Making the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier

"

Our mission statement

"

We set up our people to succeed so we can serve our communities with professionalism and pride.

"

Community Risk Management Plan

The strategic goals we have set ourselves, and this strategy as a whole, inform and are informed by our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP), which is in turn informed by your views and opinions as shared through our 2023 public consultation.

The CRMP is an assessment of the foreseeable challenges and risks facing our communities and what needs to be done to meet them.

We use this analysis to inform the strategic goals, as well as to determine the specific projects we will undertake to achieve those goals and address the risks.

Discover how we plan for risks and set goals

Our Strategy

Our Strategy is a three-year rolling strategy, previously called 'Our Plan', which sets out how our goals and how we will measure and achieve them.

Our strategic goals, based on our Community Risk Management Plan, is presented in four areas aligned to how we organise our service.

These all contribute to our vision of making the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier. Explore our new strategy via the button below.

Explore our Strategy

Risk Explorer

Data drives more and more of our work to make the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier.

It helps us to understand risks across the areas we serve. We use it to create our Community Risk Management Plan and three-year rolling strategy.

Now, you, our communities, can explore some of this data yourself in our new 'Risk Explorer' tool!

All you need to do is enter your postcode, then you can explore and interact with the same data we use! You'll be able to see incidents to which we’ve responded near you, our response times, and even the different levels of risk for various emergency types. There’s also lots of handy demographic info, and you can turn different data on and off.

Check out our Risk Explorer for yourself!

Everything.
Connected.

West Midlands Fire Service is the second largest fire and rescue service in England, covering an area of 902 square kilometres which include areas with the highest risk in England outside of London.

We operate 38 fire stations across the West Midlands with 1,164 firefighters working to make the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier.

But there’s a lot more to West Midlands Fire Service than putting out fires. From the risk-based locations of our stations and how we’re governed, to Our Plan and Community Risk Management Plans - everything is connected.

Our vision

'Making the West Midlands safer, stronger and healthier'.

Everything we do across all our areas of work is connected and driven by this vision.

Community Risk Management Plan and Our Plan

From house fires and road traffic collisions, through to flooding and terrorism - all fire and rescue services have a duty to plan their work.

Our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) takes account of risks our communities might face, as well as their views and needs.

Our Plan and our three-year rolling priorites are then created from the outcomes and identified risks from the CRMP.

Explore our Community Risk Management Plan

Understand Our Plan

Response
Prevention Protection

How

As well as our vital 999 response services, we work hard to prevent fires happening in the first place.

None of our community risk reduction activities would be possible without the expert teams who work in the background.

They support all of our people. And we all strive to deliver excellent, value-for-money services to our communities.

Our people Digital and data Our leadership team
Our Fire Stations

Our Values

Our communities are at the heart of everything we do.

Our ethics and values guide how we work together - as one, inclusive team - and help us to improve our culture and workforce diversity.

Understand our values Equality and diversity

How we're run

West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority

West Midlands Fire Service is governed by a fire authority made up of 15 councillors representing our local councils. They are also joined by a West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner representative and two co-opted members.

There are four decision-making committees and two advisory panels/forums, in addition to the full Fire Authority, that aid in either decision making or advisory capacities. The list of the committees and their terms of reference can be found here: Committees and their terms of reference

A full list of the councillors, as well as the public meetings and documents relating to fire authority governance, can be found on our Committee Management Information Service system.

Fire Authority Chair, Greg Brackenridge leading a meeting with Chief Fire Officer Phil Loach to his left.

Our senior leadership team

Our 'Senior Leadership Team' is dedicated to guiding the shape and direction of our service and ensuring that we’re meeting our legal responsibilities.

Comprising a diverse group of managers across various departments, the team ensures that our service remains focused on our core priorities and objectives outlined through our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) and Our Strategy. This enables us to remain adaptable and responsive to the ever-evolving environment of the public sector.

To find out more about senior leadership team members and their roles and responsibilities, click/tap their bios below. You can use the 'Load more' button to view them all.

Chief Executive Officer Oliver Lee OBE

Chief Executive Officer

Oliver Lee OBE

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Simon Barry - Director for Enabling Services

Deputy Chief Fire Officer

Simon Barry

Richard Stanton - Assistant Chief Fire Officer and Director for People

Assistant Chief Fire Officer

Richard Stanton

Area Manager Steve Ball - Head of Protection

Area Manager

Steve Ball

Head of Response

What we publish

We publish a lot of information and documents to ensure we are transparent and open about how we operate. Our documents section contains all of our publications and information which is released and categorised in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office publication scheme.

Our freedom of information section holds all our published information requests we receive, you can also make a new request for information if what you want isn’t already published.

If you or someone you represent requires an incident report, sometimes called a fire report, we can provide this. Typically it’s used by insurance companies. Depending on the type of information required, there is sometimes a charge for this information.

Finally, for details around our procurement and contracts procedures and you can find this on our site as well.

Female member of staff focused on her computer

Report

website issue

Language

Translation