Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service for the county of Essex in the east of England, and is one of the largest fire services in the country, covering an area of 367,000 hectares and a population of over 1.7 million people.
The service attends an average of 24,490 emergency incidents per year, mostly traffic collisions and fires (3,117 of which were 'primary' fires in 2009/10). During the same period, the service dealt with 905 primary fires that had been started deliberately, and 1,703 deliberate 'secondary' fires (those that do not threaten life or valuable property). Hoax calls in 2009/10 numbered 530.
ECFRS employs 1,640 staff, comprising 874 full-time firefighters, 479 retained firefighters, 43 control personnel and 244 support staff.
There are 50 fire stations throughout the county, 12 of which are wholetime and generally located in the more densely populated areas; 34 are retained and four are day-crewed, providing cover throughout the rest of Essex.
Major risks covered include Stansted and Southend airports, Harwich seaport, Lakeside shopping centre, Coryton oil refinery, power stations and docks at Tilbury and part of the M25 and M11 motorways and A12 trunk road.
As well as attending fires, traffic collisions and other rescue operations, ECFRS provides emergency response to hazardous materials incidents and one of the United Kingdom's urban search and rescue (USAR) teams: a team of officers with special training and equipment to conduct rescues from collapsed buildings and enclosed spaces. Their resources include a search dog trained to locate people trapped in rubble. Another primary role of the service is preventative community safety work; in 2010 ECFRS fitted over 7,000 smoke alarms in houses across the county.
Read more about Essex County Fire And Rescue Service: Organisation, Appliances, Fire Stations, Urban Search and Rescue Team, 2007 Oxfordshire Floods, Buncefield Fire
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