What Do We Do?
Lancashire’s becoming safer from fire
The effects of fire can be devastating to life and property and we are 100% committed to reducing its impact on people’s lives in Lancashire. We take an integrated approach working closely with other organisations to prevent fire in the first place, making sure the best possible protection measures are in place and providing a first-class emergency response if the worst happens.
We’re pleased to be among the top performing services in the country, as we think the public of Lancashire deserve the best. But we’re not complacent. We know there’s still work to be done to make us even safer.
24/7 365 days-a-year service
We provide fire and rescue services to the one-and-a-half million people living or working in Lancashire, on behalf of the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority. Operating from thirty-nine fire stations across the county, a service headquarters at Fulwood in Preston and a large training centre, Washington Hall at Euxton, we employ over 1500 staff in a variety of roles to provide services every hour of the day, every day of the year.
Reducing risk, improving safety
Covering just over 3,000 square kilometres and growing ever more culturally diverse, Lancashire is a county of real contrasts: from urban conurbations to sparsely populated rural areas; coastal ‘holiday’ towns to old industrial heartlands; economic affluence to high levels of deprivation. The range of community safety risk is extensive and changing quickly, requiring us to allocate resources on the basis of risk and reducing risk as far as possible.
We define the extent of risk as being the likelihood that something will happen, multiplied by the consequences if it does. This means that we focus our efforts on:
- reducing the chance of fire happening through prevention work ;
- restricting the impact if it does through protection work. ;
- providing a quick and professional response to emergencies to mitigate the consequences if all else fails.
Further information about how we analyse and calculate risk is set out in the section of this website ‘How we Plan’. Full analysis of the current risk in Lancashire is set out in our Performance Report and Action Plan.
‘Making Lancashire Safer’
‘Making Lancashire Safer’ is the simple commitment we give to the people we serve and defines the overall purpose that our staff are working to achieve. It also illustrates that we are increasingly working with a variety of partners including local authorities, police, primary care trusts and care providers to bring about better results than could be achieved by working by ourselves.
This purpose is then translated into two priorities that our work is organised around and which we measure our performance. You can find out more about our priorities and what we are doing to achieve them in our Risk Management Plan 2011-2013. You can view our current performance against these priorities in our ‘Performance’ section of this site.