Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service sees increase in volume and severity of road crashes

Warwickshire’s chief fire officer has warned that crews are not only being called out to more crashes on the county’s roads but also to worse situations.

Ben Brook was fielding questions on Warwickshire Fire and Rescue’s performance data at a meeting of the county’s resources, fire and rescue overview and scrutiny committee this week.

A Warwickshire County Council report showed that the service had attended 384 road traffic collisions (RTCs) in the year 2022-23, an increase of 10 on 2021-22.

The tally of 374 in the previous year was a dramatic increase on the 270 in 2020-21, in part due to the relaxing of Covid restrictions.

More concerningly, the 2021-22 figure saw the number of extractions from vehicles jump from 25 to 80.

That level of detail was not provided in the report for 2022-23 but Mr Brook, when asked about how performance was measured in this area, confirmed the service had “seen an increase” in severity and that work to address issues relating to road safety in the county was ongoing.

“We certainly don’t attend all RTCs in Warwickshire, as an example the police attend a lot that we don’t,” he said.

“It is very hard for fire and rescue to set targets because clearly, we don’t want any incidents to occur.

“We tend to look at averages, the amount we have had over the past three years, which gives us a figure to start from.

“It is worth noting that we have seen an increase in RTCs but what has been more challenging for us is that we have seen an increase in their severity, so not only has the volume gone up but the severity too.

“It is a real focus for us to work in partnership with police and other agencies to reduce the rate.

“Another thing worth noting is that we had 40 degree heat last summer. We often think about wildfires and grass fires but that increases all of our incident types, including RTCs.”