Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service serves a population of more than 750,000 in the south east of England. The area stretches from the outskirts of London to the South Midlands. It comprises the four districts of Buckinghamshire – Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe – and Milton Keynes.
Government plans for housing in the region could see tens of thousands of new homes built in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes over the next 25 years or so.
The urban infrastructure will have to be expanded to cope with this growth, and there will clearly be an increase in demand for fire safety education, community safety partnership working and emergency response.
Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service receives around 18,000 calls for assistance every year, of which about 8,000 are emergency incidents. It has 42 frontline and specialist fire and rescue vehicles and four Urban Search and Rescue vehicles.
The Chief Fire Officer is Mark Jones, who is supported by two Principal Officers and three Directors. More than 550 firefighters operate from Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service’s 20 strategically-placed fire stations.
An interim Urban Search and Rescue facility opened in Beaconsfield in November 2005. It moved to Aylesbury in March 2009. Urban Search and Rescue is part of the Government’s New Dimensions programme, which is made up of a series of projects that enhance the resilience and security of our communities. Changing political and environmental conditions mean that we need to be ready to tackle major incidents such as terrorist attacks, serious transport accidents and natural disasters.