About West Midlands Fire Service

We’re 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.

dvr

Everything.
Connected.

Four circles with icons representing our services

We’re 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

Four circles with icons representing our services
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.

How

Illustration of a member of staffIllustration of firefighterIllustration of fire safety officerIllustration of Fire Control operator
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 Values

An illustration of a heart with a fire station, buildings and community members inside it
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.

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 leadership team

Our leadership team, which we call the 'Strategic Enabling Team' (SET) 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, SET ensures that our service remains focused on our core priorities and objectives outlined through our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP). This enables us to remain adaptable and responsive to the ever-evolving environment of the public sector.

To find out more about specific SET members and their roles and responsibilities, click/tap a name or photo.
Chief Fire Officer Wayne Brown
Chief Fire Officer
Wayne Brown
Follow Wayne on
View Wayne's bio
Deputy Chief Fire Officer Jo Bowcock
Deputy Chief Fire Officer
Jo Bowcock
Director for Community Risk Reduction
Follow Jo on
View Jo's bio
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Simon Barry - Director for Community Risk Reduction
Assistant Chief Fire Officer
Simon Barry
Director for Enabling Services
Follow Simon on
View Simon's bio
Richard Stanton - Assistant Chief Fire Officer and Director for People
Assistant Chief Fire Officer
Richard Stanton
Director for People
Follow Richard on
View Richard's bio

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
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram