Fire and Rescue
Cork County Council provides a fire and rescue service from 21 fire stations, which are located throughout the county. We respond to approximately 3,000 emergency calls each year. These emergency calls include domestic and commercial fires, road traffic accidents, gorse fires, chemical incidents and other hazardous occurrences within the county.
The service is separated into four geographical divisions, with divisional headquarters in the fire stations of Bantry, Mallow, Midleton and Carrigaline. Each division comes under the responsibility of a Senior Executive Fire Officer, who is assisted by an Assistant Chief Fire Officer with regard to fire service operational matters within that division. Individual Station Officers and Sub-Station Officers oversee the running of the services provided to the public from each fire station.
Each Fire Station is manned by approximately 10 retained fire fighters. There are approximately 230 dedicated part-time fire fighters working for Cork County Fire Department.
Each fire fighter undertakes a two-week recruitment course on basic fire fighting. This is followed by a two-week course on the use of the breathing apparatus, which is an essential part of the fire fighter's safety equipment. Training of the retained fire fighter is continuous, and is undertaken during bi-weekly drill nights at his local fire station and ongoing refresher training courses.
New training courses, including Occupational First Aid and Road Traffic Accident First Responder are also important, in response to the increasing number of fire service callouts to road traffic accidents. Station Officers and Sub-Station Officers can continue to develop their fire fighting skills and become instructors by undertaking advanced courses.
