Strathclyde Fire & Rescue is the second largest fire and rescue service in the United Kingdom, and one of the largest in Europe.

SFR serves a population of about 2.3 million people across a 14,000 square kilometre area that ranges from rural and island communities to Scotland's largest city, Glasgow.

The Service is administered by the Board of Strathclyde Fire & Rescue whose members are drawn from the 12 unitary authorities that make up Strathclyde. On 30 September 2005, the structure of Strathclyde Fire & Rescue was changed from four commands to ten areas to enable a closer working relations with local authorities and other partner organisations such as the Police and Health Service.

SFR employs 2,196 wholetime, 630 retained, 301 volunteer, 70 operations support and 520 support staff. The firefighters are based at 113 strategically sited fire stations as far flung as Appin in Argyll to the north, Biggar in South Lanarkshire to the east, Colmonell in South Ayrshire to the south, and Balemartine on the island of Tiree to the west.

In 2005 our firefighters attended 57,800 incidents, rescuing 745 people from fires and 783 people involved in road accidents and other non-fire related incidents.

Throughout 2006, Strathclyde Fire & Rescue has placed extra emphasis on fire prevention and fire safety education. As part of new remits given by the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, the service now carries out inspections of care homes. Last year there were more than 20,000 inspections of business and other premises by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue personnel.

Home fire safety is also a major priority. In the first six months of this year, over 8,000 householders throughout Strathclyde asked us to carry out fire safety visits in their homes. During these visits, firefighters gave advice on reducing fire risk and also handed out free smoke alarms to vulnerable people and those who had not already installed alarms/domestic sprinklers.

2006 has also seen a major extension of Strathclyde Fire & Rescue's lifesaving role with the service taking over responsibility for water rescue on the River Clyde between the weir at Glasgow Green and the Erskine Bridge. This new rapid-response service employs fast and manoeuvrable launches.

The water rescue service and other new developments - such as the introduction of our state-of-the-art fire engine, the Aerial Rescue Pump - reflect a determined and incessant drive by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue to improve the safety of the communities that it serves.