 | |
| Operational area | |
|---|---|
| Country | England |
| County | Bedfordshire |
| Agency overview | |
| Established | 1 April 1997 |
| Employees | 600 |
| Facilities and equipment | |
| Stations | 14 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service is the fire and rescue service for the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire in England, consisting of the unitary authorities of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, and Luton.
Bedfordshire Fire Brigade was recreated in 1947 after the disbanding of the National Fire Service. Luton began operating an independent brigade when it became a county borough in 1964. In 1974, the Luton brigade was re-absorbed into Bedfordshire, which was renamed Bedfordshire Fire Service. It was later renamed to Bedfordshire & Luton Fire and Rescue Service in 1997,[1] on the same day that Luton became a unitary authority. This reflected that Luton was no longer in the administrative county of Bedfordshire, though Luton remained in the ceremonial county. The brigade changed to its current name in 2012, three years after the administrative county was abolished and divided into two unitary authorities.[2]
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service currently employ more than 550 staff on a variety of conditions of service. These include Firefighters on the Wholetime shift system; Firefighters on the Retained Duty System; Fire Officers on the Flexible Duty System; Fire Control Operators and support staff.
The county's control room was due to move into a regional control centre in Cambridge in 2011 as part of the FiReControl project.[3]
The control room was kept within the service and has now been confirmed as the first fire service in the UK to be implementing a cloud based mobilising solution and integrated CAD system by Motorola in mid 2021. [4]
The firefighters currently working at the county's five wholetime stations are the first in the country to work 24-hour shifts.
