The average mobilisation time of fire brigades in Clare has increased by almost 15 seconds in the space of a year.
A new report by the National Oversight and Audit Commission shows while this county’s part-time fire brigades had the sixth-fastest mobilisation time in the country last year, its now taking them longer to mobilise and attend the scene of an emergency.
NOAC’s Local Authority Performance Indicator Report for 2023 shows that the national average per capita cost of providing the fire service in 2023 was €65.76.
This, it’s stated, can be affected by severe weather events such as storms, floods, snow storms and gorse fires.
The average cost of the service in Clare per capita was €50.86 which although €15 below the national average, was up 2% from the previous year.
The report shows that the average time it took a fire brigade in Clare to mobilise in respect of a fire last year was five minutes and four seconds.
While this is the sixth-fastest mobilisation time nationwide, it’s 13 seconds more than it took the county’s fire brigades to mobilise in 2022.
The mobilisation for Clare’s retained firefighters in respect of all other non-fire incidents was five minutes and 21 seconds which was 27 seconds more than its time in the year preceding it.
The county’s fire brigades recorded first attendance on the scene of a fire within 10 minutes in 38% of cases which was down from 42% in 2022.
They were however on the scene of a fire within between 10 and 20 minutes in 39% of cases, meaning almost 80% of the time, Clare’s fire brigades arrived at the scene of a fire-related incident within 20 minutes.
While brigades were on the scene of non-fire emergency incidents within 10 minutes on 33% of occasions in 2022, this dropped to 26% last year.
NOAC states in its report that the industrial action engaged in by retained firefighters from June 6th to August 17th last year meant some stations were closed, resulting in delays to emergency calls nationwide.
Furthermore, it says average mobilisation times can be affected by factors such as time of day, traffic and remoteness from the nearest fire station.
