FOI release

Fire appliances availability

Case reference FOI2026/00918

Received 4 August 2026

Published 2 September 2026

Request

Please share details of the Retained/On-Call fire appliances availability over the most recent 12-month period, stipulating the amount of time these appliances were 'off the run' (unavailable) to respond to an emergency.

I would like these details to be broken down on a station-by-station basis into:

1. The number of hours per month that an appliance was unavailable

2. The percentage of time per month that an appliance was unavailable.

Response

London Fire Brigade (LFB) has a dynamic resourcing model, which means they can move resources around London where they are needed to meet demand and this is done every day as LFB takes a London-wide approach.

The table below shows the status duration for pump ladder/pump appliances in the 12 month period between 01 August 2025 to 31 July 2026 (LFB do not have retained pumping appliances):

01 August 2025 to 31 July 2026

Status

Status duration (hours)

% Status duration

Available

937,606.97

75.38%

Off the Run

136,178.18

10.95%

Occupied

113,867.77

9.15%

Not Immediately Available

56,267.09

4.52%

Total

1,243,920.01

100.00%

I have attached a breakdown of the ‘Off the Run’ status duration by month and station in PDF file ‘FOI2026_00918 Data’ in the ‘Documents’ section below. 

Please note, appliance callsigns ending in a ‘1’ are a pump ladder and callsigns ending in ‘2’ are an additional secondary appliance known as a pump.  All LFB stations have a pump ladder, 40 stations have a pump ladder and an additional pump.

Documents

This is London Fire Brigade's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.