Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service

The Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service covering Herefordshire and Worcestershire in the West Midlands region of England.

The service was created in 1974 when Herefordshire and Worcestershire were merged to create the county of Hereford and Worcester. The two counties were split up again in 1998 but the fire service remained, and is now run by a joint fire authority.

The Service covers an area of 3,908.59 km² with a population of 714,100. The service has 332 wholetime operational staff, 369 retained (part time) staff, 21 Fire Control staff, as well as about 98 non-uniformed support staff.

Famous quotes containing the words fire, rescue and/or service:

    “The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
    —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

    “To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost—that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization—is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.”
    —Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

    “The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)