Impact Report - Every Contact Counts

Each year, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service meets thousands of people, whether through our work to prevent emergencies, to protect buildings through fire safety work or when we respond to 999 calls.

For us Every Contact Counts.

And that’s not just contact with the public, but with our own colleagues, volunteers and cadets.

Our Impact Report shines the light on how our approach has affected peoples lives.

Read the Impact Report.

Read our performance report.

Home Safety Visits 

We visit people in their homes to offer advice, support and equipment including specialist smoke alarms.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we needed to adapt from our usual face to face visits, and so until COVID restrictions were relaxed home safety visits were undertaken over the telephone. In 2021/22 2,599 were conducted over the phone by community safety staff and operational crews. 

When restrictions were lifted on 19 July 2021 the Service reverted to face to face visits and a further 6,778 properties were visited.

95.1% of these home safety visits were to vulnerable people within our community 2021/22.

Inspections of high risk premises completed  

This priority area was introduced in 2017/18 and deemed critically important following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. 

Once the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted the Service reverted back to face to face business safety audits and business safety visits. The protection inspection team completed 470 audits and the operational crews 998 business safety visits

Responding to emergencies

We attend a wide range of incidents, including road traffic collisions and assisting other agencies such as the ambulance service when they are trying to reach patients.

In 2021/22, the total number of incidents attended was 10,548. 

• 4,798 of these were false alarms, including  where apparatus has malfunctioned, malicious activation or when someone made a genuine mistake thinking there was a fire when there wasn't.
• 1078 were assistance to other agencies such as the police or ambulance.

Reducing fires in homes 

Fires in the home at best cause disruption and at worst can lead to injuries and sadly loss of life.

That’s why reducing the number of accidental fires in dwellings is one of our priorities.

In 2021/22 we had the lowest number of accidental dwelling fires ever with 433 recorded in East Sussex and Brighton and Hove.

This is a 2.5% reduction against the previous year when 444 were reported. 

53% (55% in previous year) of the accidental dwelling fires occurred in the kitchen, with cooking appliances responsible for 177 (78%) of these.

49% of the fires in homes we attended didn’t need crews to take firefighting action and a further 21% were dealt with by what we call “small means” (e.g. bucket of water, disconnecting a fuel supply or removing an item from a heat source), portable extinguishers’ or were ‘Allowed to burnout’ under the supervision of the crew. 

Other fires

The number of deliberate fires fell to 664 in 2021/22 from 730 the previous year and similarly the number of industrial and commercial fires fell to 114 from 123. 

Attendance standards

Whenever you call us in an emergency, your call comes into our Joint Fire Control, which then mobilises the nearest or most appropriate fire appliance, along with any other specialist vehicles/officers depending upon the problem.

Our response standards are as follows:  

The first arriving appliances at any incident from an 'On-Station response' within 10 minutes 70% of the time

The first arriving appliances at any incident from an 'On-Call response' within 15 minutes 70% of the time

In 2021/22 we exceeded these standards:

• 77.5% of the first arriving appliances at any incident from an 'On-Station response' arrived within 10 minutes

• 73% of the first arriving appliances at any incident from an 'On-Call response' arrived within 15 minutes