
A survey by the BBC (5live) suggests that UK fire brigade average response times to fires have continued to deteriorate in 2016, reaching for example 13 minutes in Suffolk and 8 minutes in Essex.
This comes on top of government figures showing a worsening average response time from 2009/2010 to 2015/2016 for 80% of fire brigades (the government has not updated figures since then). Average England response time to dwelling fires in 2014/2015 was nearly 8 minutes, increased from less than 6 minutes in 1994/1995 (part of the increase may be due to data system changes). The head of the UK Fire Brigades Union (FBU) blames cuts in fire services budgets (17% reduction since 2010).
“Cuts undermining fire services, says Fire Brigades Union” 11/12/2016 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38278596 and “Fire Incidents Response Times: April 2014 to March 2015, England”, Fire & Rescue Statistical Release 19 November 2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fire-statistics