Demand: historic, current and potential future position

Past and current trends

Using government data demand analysis of the total number of all incidents attended over time shows numbers increasing from the start of 2019-20 from 5,378 to 6,358 at March 2025. The visual below shows this trend. Our prevention, protection, and response functions are very well supported by proactive communications and engagement activities. These include support for national and local campaigns through social media, more traditional media such as local media, radio, posters and flyers etc, and physical community events.

This total number of all incidents can be expressed as a more comparable 'rate' per 1,000 people and in Gloucestershire this is 9.5, slightly lower than the national average of 10.3. In March 2025, the three broad incident types that make up this total were as follows:

• 'All fires' = make up 18.2%, down from 30% in early 2019-20. A lower rate per 1,000 population than for England
• 'Primary fires', which include dwelling fires are most frequently attended
• Response times can be very different depending on if a wholetime or on-call station is responding. Over the past three years our average response time to primary fires is 10 minutes 24 seconds, average response time for wholetime stations is 8 minutes 45 seconds, and for on-call is 13 minutes 23 seconds
• 'Non-fire incidents' = make up 48.6%, up from 35.5% in early 2019-20. A higher rate per 1,000 population than for England
• Assisting other agencies, flooding and RTCs are most frequently attended incidents

'All fires' = 18.2% ↓ from 30% in early 2019-20 'Non-fire incidents' = 48.6% ↑ from from 35.5% in early 2019-20

'Non-fire incidents' = 48.6% ↑ from from 35.5% in early 2019-20

GFRS Community Risk Management Plan 2026-2030