FIRE and rescue services can no longer ensure public safety, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has warned as it revealed the full extent of Tory cuts across Britain.

Between 2010 and this year, 21 per cent of front-line firefighters’ jobs — 12,000 — have been axed due to government cuts, new data shows.

The FBU also found that 4,000 firefighters have both a full-time and an on-call contract and are counted as two workers in the data, meaning that firefighter numbers available are even lower than the data suggests.

The union said response times to life-threatening fires had slowed by three minutes, from 6.11 minutes in 1995 to 9.13 minutes in 2023.

One in three fire control staff, who take emergency calls and mobilise crews, have gone.

Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service suffered the highest proportion of job losses — 256 (41 per cent) — followed by West Yorkshire with 617 jobs lost (36 per cent), Nottinghamshire with 322 (33 per cent) and Greater Manchester with 595 (30 per cent).

London, where over 200 firefighters battled a tower block fire in Dagenham on Sunday and today, lost 1,349 workers (22 per cent).

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Fourteen years of austerity have devastated the fire and rescue service.

“With flooding, wildfires and storms on the rise as a result of the climate emergency, firefighters are being asked to do more with less.

“999 response times are slower than ever before, putting homes and lives at risk.

“To protect the public, Labour must invest in the fire and rescue service as a matter of urgency.”