Fire and rescue authorities operational statistics: April 2025 to March 2026

These statistics relate to the fire and rescue service between April 2025 and the end of March 2026 (denoted as FYE 2026).

Fire and Rescue Authority personnel

• 2,248 full-time equivalent staff (FTE) and 1,255 retained duty system (RDS) staff employed across the 3 Welsh Fire and Rescue Authority areas on 31 March 2026; this this compares with 2,271 FTE and 1,306 RDS staff FYE 2025.
• Of the 2,248 FTE staff, around two thirds (1,490) were wholetime firefighters, a similar proportion to earlier years.

Health and safety

• 14.5 shifts or days were lost per person to sickness for wholetime firefighters and 20.5 shifts or days for fire control staff.
• 94 injuries sustained by wholetime (including day crew) and retained duty system firefighters in the course of operational and training activities.

Operational activities

• Fire control handled almost 80,000 calls in Wales, an increase of 9% on FYE 2025.

Fire safety

• Welsh Fire and Rescue Authorities completed 1,896 fire safety audits in non-domestic premises; this represents 2% of known such premises in Wales.

Community Fire Safety

• Fire and Rescue Authorities in Wales completed over 50,000 Home Fire Safety Checks; in 89% of these at least one member of the household was identified as displaying a risk.
• Fire and Rescue Authorities completed over 22,000 Home Fire Safety Checks that also involved completion of non-fire related prevention activity; almost 2,200 resulted in an onward referral to another organisation.

Community Safety Statistics
Email: stats.inclusion@gov.wales 

Media: 0300 025 8099