Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Predecessors: Emergency Fire Service

AT 102

1952-2003

Files relate to the organisation and management of the Emergency Fire Service (EFS), the deployment of its appliances and associated technical and policy matters.

The main series of Home Office civil defence files is HO 322

Home Office files leading up to the Fire Services Act 1947 are in HO 187

CD, and EFS

Public Record(s)

English

• Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, 2001-2002
• Home Office, 1782-1782
• Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2002-2006

29 file(s)

Open

in 2009 Department for Communities and Local Government

Earlier files are CD prefix transferred from the Home Office, later files were made up by the Emergency Fire Service (EFS) at Marchington. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2002 to 2006); Department for Communities and Local Government (2006 onwards).

No further accruals are expected

Files concerning the deployment of EFS appliances, guidance on their use and maintenance and the organisation and future of the EFS have been selected for retention. Files relating to routine financial transactions, staff management and accommodation matters have not.

The deterioration of international relations following the end of the Second World War, culminating in the Berlin crisis, prompted the UK Government to pass the Civil Defence Act 1948 to re-activate the wartime civil defence apparatus. Part of this was the part-time Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) designed to augment the regular fire service in time of emergency. Following the acquisition of the atomic bomb by the Soviet Union in 1949 studies were conducted on the implications for the Fire Service. A result of this was the introduction from 1953 onwards of a new family of fire appliances for the AFS. They were green in colour and became known as 'Green Goddesses'. These appliances belonged to the Home Office and were loaned to fire authorities.

As part of defence cuts in 1967 the AFS was disbanded and the equipment returned to the Home Office who stored it in their Regional Supply and Transport Depots. The equipment was available for loan in response to emergencies and was used in response to flooding and fire service strikes. By 1991 only one depot was holding AFS equipment, at Marchington in Staffordshire.

In 2001 responsibility for the Fire Service was passed to the Department of Transport Local Government and the Regions (DTLR) from the Home Office and was inherited by its successor departments (ODPM and DCLG). In 2006 the EFS Depot at Marchington was disbanded and the appliances sold, as the Government now had powers to requisition local authority fire appliances in the event of industrial action.

(The above applies to England and Wales only; separate arrangements were made for AFS equipment in Scotland and Northern Ireland)