Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service

​The County of Carmarthenshire is the third biggest in Wales covering an area of 2,385 square kilometres. The majority of the 190,000 people, who live in the County, live in or around the three principal towns of Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford; whilst the remainder live within the many small and medium sized communities sprinkled throughout the region.

The administrative centre of Carmarthenshire is the market town of Carmarthen, whilst the most populated area is in and around the town of Llanelli.

The County of Carmarthenshire is one of six to make up the area of Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service and the County Command Headquarters is situated at Trevaughan within the town of Carmarthen.

The Carmarthenshire Command team situated at HQ administers 11 fire stations which are situated at Llanelli, Carmarthen, Kidwelly, Pontyates, Ammanford, Tumble, Newcastle Emlyn, Llandysul, Llandeilo, Llandovery and Whitland.

Three of these stations have specially equipped community rooms and are available for use by the community. We actively encourage local communities to utilize these rooms at every opportunity. The rooms at Llanelli, Ammanford and Carmarthen are well utilised by local groups who have in many cases made them their regular meeting places.

The Fire Stations at Llanelli and Carmarthen are crewed by Wholetime firefighters supported by on-call Firefighters.​

The Head of Command is supported by a Deputy Head of Command and three fire officers:

The Community Safety Manager - responsible for all prevention activities designed to reduce the amount and impact of fire, rescues and road traffic collisions.

The Business Fire Safety Manager - responsible for protecting the public from fire and in all public and commercial buildings by enforcing current Fire Safety Legislation .

The Operational Response Manager - responsible for ensuring that our firefighters are highly skilled, equipped and available to deal with any incident they may be called to.

​​Prevention

Although we are always available to respond when a fire or other emergency occurs, response alone will only minimally reduce their impact. When a fire breaks out it often spreads so quickly that by the time the Fire and Rescue Service arrives it is already too late. The same can be said for Road Traffic Collisions, once the collision has occurred the damage has been done. The most effective way of protecting people from the effects of accidents and emergencies is to prevent the incidents happening in the first place.

We therefore focus on providing safety information and delivering educational programs to members of our communities to raise their awareness of risk and reduce the number of incidents that occur.

To help us achieve this, we work closely with our partners such as the Police, Social Services, Local Authorities,  Social Housing providers and a range of third sector organisations, sharing information and resources to help ensure we help those most at risk.

Our preventative activities are based upon the type of incidents we attended from which we can identify what represents risk to our communities. 

The five main categories are:

• Home Fire Safety

• Schools Education

• Road Safety

• Youth Engagement

• Arson

To be effective, each of these categories must be approached in a way that reflects the needs of the vulnerable group, to help achieve this we have developed a range of initiatives designed to best deliver our messages and make people more safety conscious.

Protection

Key Areas of Activity

Undertake an inspection programme of Business or Commercial premises. This will be based on the level of identified or perceived ‘risk’ at the premises. Resources will be targeted and directed in the first instance at ‘Higher risk’ premises, followed by those identified as ‘Medium’ and ‘Low’ risk.

Promote, enhance and increase the number of premises, both Commercial and Domestic, fitted with Sprinkler Systems, other suitable Fire Suppression Systems and appropriate Fire Alarm and Detection Systems, achieving this aim by, working closely with partners, applying relevant guidance and enforcing current legislation.

Reducing the number of unwanted automatic fire alarm signals, by working proactively with the ‘Responsible Person’ for the ‘system’ installed at the premises.

Reduce the impact and mitigate the effects of arson on the business community, accomplishing this aim via a programme of education, inspection or auditing and enforcement.

Working closely with Building Control regulators to ensure that appropriate fire safety measures are incorporated into the ‘as built’ environment. Designing-out fire safety risks at the earliest opportunity.

Response

Although our primary aim is to prevent fires and other emergencies from occurring through our prevention and protection activities, it is inevitable that emergency situations will develop, despite our best efforts. We will therefore continue to provide the highest quality of service to our communities by ensuring that our operational personnel receive the very highest quality of training, that they are equipped to deal with all emergency incidents to which they may be called upon to respond, and that they have a thorough knowledge of the risks to which they may be exposed.