The Fire and Rescue Service in Tipperary deals with an average of nearly 35 call outs each week.
The service has twelve stations across the county with 130 retained firefighters.
They deal with up to 1,800 incidents each year with an expenditure in excess of €8 million per year.
A one hour callout for the Tipperary Fire and Rescue Service costs €450 compared with Westmeath which has a charge of €1,350 for a domestic blaze.
However Chief Fire Officer Dave Carroll says this doesn’t go anywhere near covering the cost of running the service.
“I mentioned the figure of just over €8 million that we spend on the fire service. Our fire charges – we collect less than €200,000 typically in a year so its about 2% of a contribution towards the running costs.
“So while the charges on an individual basis probably appear steep, really they’re only a fraction of what we need to run the service.”
The Chief Fire Officer has paid tribute to the efforts of fire personnel across the county.
Dave Carroll says they are very much part of their local community.
“I mean the commitment that they give is just phenomenal – it really is 24/7. And trust me the wages that they earn really don’t reflect the commitment that they give.
“The retained service is very different from the full-time service. They’re very much of their community.
“We have a lot of emotional and psychological support and we have professional services that we can go back on but really they rely on themselves and their families a lot in all of our stations.
“Most of the people they’ll come across (on a callout) somebody on the crew will possibly know them.”
