Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service of Northern Ireland which is under the control of Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board of which is the subordinate of Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.
The service is in-charge of a total area of 13,843 kilometers square and 1,710,300 populace. There 68 stations, 7 of which are crewed 24 hours; the other 7 are on a wholetime-retained duty system
The firefighters perform a varied tasks- they attend to all forms of fire accidents, may it be house fires, building fires or fires in open spaces. They also rescue people trapped in collapsed buildings, attend to traffic accidents and other rescue operations. There are also 7 stations which are variable crewed which means to say that fulltime firefighters operate the stations at daytime and the retained during night. The remaining 46 stations are crewed on a retained duty system of which the firefighters live nearby the stations so they can come over within 5 minutes after a call is received. There is 1 station operated by volunteers in Rathlin Island. Furthermore, the service is split into 4 area commands which are Wester, Southern, Northern and Eastern, of which the Eastern command covers the Greater Belfast.
Presently, the service has 2,230 employees , of which 91 of them are fulltime firefighters, 994 are retained/on-call, 12 are volunteers, 58 are regional control center staff, 208 are support staff and the remaining 53 are part-time caretakers.
The headquarters is installed in Boucher Crescent South Belfast which is being administered by Chief Fire Officer Peter Craig and Deputy Chief Fire Officer Tom Wright.
