A new report has revealed that Westmeath’s fire brigade had the third slowest mobilisation time of the country’s part-time fire brigades last year.
The average time for Westmeath’s fire brigade to mobilise was 6.3 minutes, a figure which represents a worsening of the previous year’s findings, when the mobilisation time was a faster 5.7 minutes.
The time it took Westmeath’s fire services to reach fire scenes in 2007 also showed a slight increase on 2006, with an average of 36.4 scenes attended within 10 minutes, compared to 38.2 per cent the previous year. However, a number of local authorities highlighted serious issues related to attendance times, including an increase in traffic volumes in urban areas.
The Service Indicators in Local Authorities 2007 report, published this week, revealed that Offaly’s part-time fire brigade took the longest time to mobilise at 7.6 minutes, while Wexford’s stations were just slower than Westmeath at 6.4 minutes. Meanwhile Sligo’s fire brigade mobilised in an average of 4.2 minutes, the fastest of the country’s part-time brigades.
Of the country’s full-time fire services, Galway’s fire brigade had the slowest mobilistion time, with an average of 3.3 minutes compared to Dublin and Limerick’s 1.4 minutes.
Westmeath’s chief fire officer was unavailable to comment on the report at time of going to press.
