West Sussex County Council: Retained Duty System Firefighters

Links to Sections

The West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service offers you the chance to help the community

West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is a County Council provided service whose main functions are to save life and property from fire and to provide community fire safety and fire prevention advice.

It has statutory duties with regard to firefighting and fire safety, and discretionary powers with regard to other emergencies.

The role of the Fire Service has increased enormously over recent years as equipment and procedures have been developed to enable the service to tackle a wider range of emergencies.

These changes are reflected in the fact that during the period April 2006 to March 2007 26% of all emergencies involved fires, while 23% involved special services such as road traffic accidents, flooding calls and chemical incidents and 49% involve suspected fires.

Fire, rescue and emergency services are provided from the Service's 28 fire stations, 19 of which are entirely crewed by retained firefighters and a further 9 employ some retained firefighters in the establishment

Retained firefighters are extremely important, highly trained and professional personnel who receive ongoing training to support their development and are paid for their services to their community.