West Midlands Fire Service

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**West Midlands Fire Service**
Coverage
West Midlands Fire Service area
Area	West Midlands county
Size	902 km²
Population	2,591,300
Operations
Formed	1974
HQ	Birmingham
Staff
Stations	41
Chief Fire Officer	Frank Sheehan QFSM

Website	West Midlands Fire Service
Fire Authority	West Midlands Fire & Rescue Authority

The West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) is the statutory fire and rescue service responsible for fire protection, prevention, intervention and emergency rescue in the West Midlands county in England.

The West Midlands Fire Service functions under the control of the "West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority" which is a joint-authority, made up of councillors from the seven local authorities in the West Midlands.

The service was created in 1974 when the West Midlands county came into being. Prior to its creation, each of the county boroughs in the West Midlands area (Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Solihull, Walsall, Warley, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton) had their own fire brigade [1]. The largest of which was the City of Birmingham Fire Brigade. The WMFS was created by a merger of these, plus parts of Warwickshire Fire Brigade.

It is headquartered in the former City of Birmingham Fire Brigade headquarters at Lancaster Circus which were opened on December 2, 1935 by the Duke of Kent. It is now a listed building.

1 Organisation
2 Fire stations
3 Fire appliances
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Organisation

The brigade is run under the command of the Chief Fire Officer and the Corporate Board, and provides emergency response from 41 strategically located fire stations, divided into nine Borough Commands:

Six of the Borough Commands are coterminous with the Metropolitan boroughs of the West Midlands county; Birmingham however is divided into three commands.

These are:

Birmingham Central
Birmingham North
Birmingham South
Coventry
Dudley
Sandwell
Solihull
Walsall
Wolverhampton

[edit] Fire stations

The fire service has 41 fire stations. 40 of which are full time, and one (Sedgley) is part time^[1]

[edit] Fire appliances

West Midlands Fire Service operates 60 front line fire engines, ^[2] mainly of the Dennis Sabre type. The service also operate a number of specialist aplliances such as hydraulic platforms.