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.
![Our year on a page ([PDF]](/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/2024-10/Our%20year_1.png?itok=WJIusuJZ)
Impact Report 2023-24
This year our report reveals a drop in deliberate fires from last year.
They decreased from 724 in 2022/23 to 667 in 2023/24, following a focus on this area.
Along with awareness campaigns and assisting police with prosecutions, we are now part of FireStoppers. This scheme encourages people to share intelligence about people they suspect are responsible for incidents of arson, anonymously, 24/7, 365 days a year.
The figures also reveal that there has been an increase in the number of incidents attended by the Service. In 2023/24, 10,562 incidents attended were up from 10,440.
Response standards
Whenever you call us in an emergency, your call comes into our Joint Fire Control, which then mobilises the quickest 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
We continue to exceed these targets:
• 78.13% of the first arriving appliances at any incident from an ‘On-Station response’ within 10 minutes.
• 75.22% of the first arriving appliances at any incident from an ‘On-Call response’ within 15 minutes.
Home fire safety
We visit people in their homes to offer advice, support and equipment including specialist smoke alarms. In 2023/24 we visited 9,075 properties. 91.2% of these home safety visits were to vulnerable people within our community. Get in touch to book yours.
We are reviewing our fire safety campaigns and activities, as there has been a slight increase in accidental fires in homes - 434 compared to the previous year’s 412.
Protecting buildings – fire safety engagement, training and enforcement
New legislation and regulations continue to be rolled out and implemented following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s recommendations.
We have also continued our work on inspections and fire safety checks.
- Number of inspections of high-risk premises - 524
- Number of fire safety checks by operational crews - 858
Hall of Fame
Improvement and Efficiency Social Enterprise (iESE) celebrated their 15th Anniversary of the Public Sector Transformation Awards in March 2024.
As part of this year’s annual awards event, the ‘iESE Hall of Fame’ was launched acting as a hallmark for some of the most outstanding public sector organisations that have ranked the highest in judging and scoring for previous nominations.
We are honoured and delighted to have received the award to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame Award is now placed proudly alongside our previous year’s awards:
• 2017 Gold Award for Project of the Year.
• 2021 Gold Award in the Data Insight category.
• 2021 UK Fire and Rescue Service of the Year.
• 2022 Silver Award in the Data Insight category.
Read our previous reports.