'Funding cutbacks made Dunwich Heath wildfire more challenging'

The chief fire officer for Suffolk has told MPs the summer wildfires have highlighted the need for more resilience and investment following fire service cutbacks.

Jon Lacey said tackling the fire at Dunwich Heath was "hugely challenging", with crews from 14 other services having to come to the county to help.

"We have seen cutbacks in recent years where firefighter numbers have been reduced and that proved challenging at Dunwich… national resilience and capacity should be looked at for investment," he said.

Lacey was giving evidence to the Housing, Communities and Local Government committee on Tuesday, in a one-off session on the current state of fire and rescue services.

The cross-party committee was exploring the arrangements the government needed to make to ensure fire services are better equipped to cope with climate change.

Lacey also spoke about the issue of rural services relying heavily on on-call firefighters, who also have day jobs.

He said: "You can only rotate them around a shift so many times."

He added that even then, many were being sent to "another fire or back to the fire at Dunwich only a few hours after they had just left".

His firefighters were also needed after Dunwich to help with blazes in Hampshire and Wales, "because we knew that they needed that help".

At the meeting, Lacey called for more funding.

"It is encouraging to hear that the RAF may well be providing us with firefighting capability [in the future], but that may come at a cost to local authorities," he added.

New technology, like robotics, could also make firefighters' jobs easier, but councils did not have the budgets to invest in that either, he said.

Referring to the prime minister's wildfire summit last week , the chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, Phil Carrigan, said there had been positive signs about new investment in the country's fire service, but more was needed.

He also called for a better way of funding it in future.

Last week, Andy Burnham told reporters that fire and rescue services were "stretched" during the summer and firefighters had worked in "extremely difficult conditions", before committing to providing better equipment.

He said "too often in the past we've been playing catch up", adding "the summer we've just had is likely to be a more regular situation going forward".

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