In this section: Public services
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service: spending, staff and incidents
Last updated . Figures refresh every night. How each figure is worked out.
£104m for Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service in 2024-25, £53.89 per resident, +5.3% on a year earlier after inflation. It attended 24,068 incidents in 2024-25.
Figure as of 1 March 2026. Source: Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.
Key figures
- £104m2024-25, cash +9.6% on a year earlier
- £53.89Per resident, 2024-25
- 2,013 FTEStaff, full-time equivalent, 2024-25 Northern Ireland: 2,013 FTE
- 67 stationsFire stations, 2024-25 Northern Ireland: 67 stations
- 12.5 per 1,000 residentsIncidents mobilised to per 1,000 residents, 2024-25 Northern Ireland: 12.5 per 1,000 residents
Over time: cash, real terms and per resident
Real terms use HM Treasury’s GDP deflator, 2025-26 prices. Breaks in the series: 2013-14: Scotland’s eight fire and rescue services merged into the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on 1 April 2013. 2016-17: Dorset and Wiltshire fire and rescue services combined on 1 April 2016; statistics before then are added together for the combined area. 2017-18: Greater Manchester’s fire and rescue authority passed to the Greater Manchester mayor (May 2017), and London’s (the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority) to the Mayor of London (April 2018); both report their spending inside GMCA and the GLA. 2019-20: Northamptonshire’s fire and rescue service moved from the county council to the police, fire and crime commissioner (January 2019). 2021-22: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight fire services combined on 1 April 2021; earlier spending adds Hampshire’s fire authority and the Isle of Wight Council’s fire spending. 2023-24: Cumbria’s fire and rescue service moved from Cumbria County Council to the police, fire and crime commissioner on 1 April 2023, when the county was abolished. 2024-25: North Yorkshire’s fire and rescue service passed to the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority’s mayor in May 2024 and reports its spending there. 2025-26: Responsibility for fire statistics in England moved from the Home Office to MHCLG on 1 April 2025; the tables continue unchanged.
The numbers behind this chart
| Year | Real terms (2025-26 prices) | Cash |
|---|---|---|
2022-23Details for 2022-23 | £100.3m | £88.5m |
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2023-24Details for 2023-24 | £102.1m | £94.8m |
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2024-25Details for 2024-25 | £107.5m | £103.9m |
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Figure as of 1 March 2026. Source: Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.
Per resident divides by ONS mid-year population estimates.
The numbers behind this chart
| Year | Per resident, 2025-26 prices | Per resident, cash |
|---|---|---|
2022-23Details for 2022-23 | £53 | £46 |
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2023-24Details for 2023-24 | £53 | £49 |
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2024-25Details for 2024-25 | £56 | £54 |
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Figure as of 1 March 2026. Source: Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.
Source: Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 (Long-Term Expenditure Trends, audited), published 1 March 2026.
Where it sits, and what is below it
- UK total
- Nation
- Department or service body not published
- Local body (this level)
- Spending category not published
- Line or transaction not published
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
Net expenditure against the revenue resource limit, excluding non-cash expenditure.
£104m in 2024-25 (cash); £108m in 2025-26 prices; £53.89 per resident; +9.6% on a year earlier in cash, +5.3% in real terms.
Spending category: not published. NIFRS publishes its spending only in its annual report and accounts (PDF); no breakdown by activity is shown here.
Cash is as published. Real terms are in 2025-26 prices, using HM Treasury’s GDP deflator. Per resident divides by ONS mid-year population for the area the body serves. Changes compare the same body in consecutive years.
What these figures do and don't show
- Incidents are not only fires. Fire and rescue services also attend road accidents, floods, other emergencies and false alarms; the figures say which is which.
- Response times are published for England only. Wales and Scotland publish none by service, and Northern Ireland reports against its own attendance standards, so no response time is compared across nations.
- Nations count differently. Each nation’s statistics define incidents, staff and deaths in their own way; figures are compared within a nation, and across nations only where the definitions match.
- Nothing here shows cause and effect. Money, staff, stations and incidents are shown side by side. A service covering a large rural area needs more stations for the same number of incidents.
- Appliance counts stopped in 2021 in England; the last published figure is marked as such.
Where this sits: Fire and rescue, United Kingdom → Fire and rescue, Northern Ireland → Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service. Figures from data/services/fire.json, generated 29 September 2026.
Use this data
The figures belong to the bodies that published them and are used under their terms, listed in Sources for this page; most are Crown copyright under the Open Government Licence. Only our own words, analysis, charts and derived calculations are ours, published under CC BY 4.0: reuse them, including commercially, if you credit Tekstak Ltd and link back to this page.
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Sources for this page
| Source | Publisher | Figures as of | Updated | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 (Long-Term Expenditure Trends, audited) | Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service | 1 March 2026 | annual | Quoted with attribution (the publisher’s own terms) link only |
| Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 (service delivery statistics and SPI 9) | Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service | 1 March 2026 | annual | Quoted with attribution (the publisher’s own terms) link only |
Each source's figures are used under the licence shown. Our own words, analysis, charts and derived calculations are ours, under CC BY 4.0.