PEOPLE in Cumbria had to wait for longer than the national average for firefighters to attend emergency callouts, new figures show. 

However Cumbria Fire and Rescue said that the patch it has to operate in is significantly larger than the average operational landscape and therefore this affects response times. 

According to this year's fire statistics table, compiled by the Home Office, the average response time for Cumbria in 2022/23 is 10 minutes and 41 seconds. This includes time spent on the phone reporting the incident, the crew's preparation, and their journey time. 

This is a slighht improvement on 2021/22's response time, which was 10 minutes and 54 seconds. It ranked 29th out of 44 fire services in England for response times, and the average for the country was nine minutes and 13 seconds. 

The average time it took Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service to handle calls was one minute and 29 seconds. 

A spokesperson from the service said: "The figures for response times are a standardised national approach, which covers services with a wide range of operational landscapes. The overall figure includes metropolitan services such as London, with a significantly smaller operational area of 607 square miles, and Merseyside Fire and Rescue covers an area of 252 square miles.

"In Cumbria, as a predominantly rural county, we cover an area of 2634 square miles which includes a large expanse of coastline, mountains, lakes and B Roads. As you would expect travel distances are often greater and more complex due to the geography and landscape of the county.

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"We continuously monitor response times and have invested in various types of appliances including smaller more agile Rapid Response Vehicles. We actively review our response times as part of the ongoing Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) development process, and we welcome public feedback and engagement with this process, as part of our commitment to deliver the best service possible for our communities." 

The national average response time is slower than in previous years. The Fire Brigades Union criticised the government for not investing enough in services. 

A Home Office spokesman: "The government is committed to ensuring fire services have the resources they need to keep us safe, and overall fire and rescue authorities will receive around £2.6 billion in 2023-24.

“Decisions on how their resources are best deployed to meet their core functions are a matter for each fire and rescue authority.”