We have an excellent track record in identifying and reducing ever-changing risks and working collaboratively with other agencies to increase public safety.

The professionalism and dedication of our firefighters to respond assertively, effectively and safely – coupled with our risk-based, five-minute attendance standard – is at the heart of our Service Delivery Model. We have reduced our response times significantly over the last five years and we are continually looking at ways to improve, utilising technology wherever possible.

Our risk-based, five-minute response is one of the best in the country. We’ve worked with academics and medical experts on research that shows the time it takes to get to an incident is critical to someone surviving a fire or a road traffic collision.

So we know that our five-minute response, based on evidence and our knowledge of risk, saves lives, homes and businesses. It also helps us to plan where we need our people and resources, including our fire stations, engines and more specialist resources.

In turn, this gives us the capacity to deliver our equally important and collaborative prevention and protection services. This approach is efficient, effective and recognised by our communities as being in their interest.

Getting to you quickly when you call 999 in an emergency will always be a priority for us. We utilise technology such as 999eye to ensure we can match our response to the type of emergency.

Here in the West Midlands we aim to get to incidents where life or property is in danger in high-risk areas in just five minutes. We frequently exceed this standard.

We pride ourselves on delivering our response services assertively, effectively and safely. They protect lives, properties and businesses and help to keep the West Midlands’ transport networks and economy running.

Further afield, the skills and expertise of our staff can be called upon to help people in the UK or around the world who are affected by major incidents or humanitarian crises.