...A chance to visit the Communication Control Room of the second largest Fire & Rescue Service in England. West Midlands Fire Service has 38 fire stations; employs around 1,900 staff of whom 1,350 are wholetime firefighters. It is ranked as the third fastest in the UK with an average response time of 7 minutes 19 seconds – and respond to around 25,000 incidents every year.
As well as West Midlands Fire Service, the Fire Control centre also manages incidents in neighbouring Staffordshire Fire & Rescue Service – adding a further 9,000 incidents per year across 33 fire stations staffed with a mix of wholetime and on-call firefighters.