Firefighters suffered 128 accidents in a year including falls, scalds and skin irritation from a fire blanket

Firefighters tripping while responding to moorland blazes and being hit by equipment falling from overhead lockers are among the accidents reported by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service in recent years.

And in one incident five firefighters suffered a skin irritation due to inspecting a fire blanket.

A new report has been drawn up by the service that details accidents that have taken place in the past year – accidents that have cost the service over £160,000.

The report was discussed by West Yorkshire Fire Authority at a meeting this week.

It revealed that there were 128 accidents in the period between April 2025 and March 2026. This was a six per cent rise compared to the previous year.

These accidents cost the authority £160,281and led to a loss of 588 days of work. More than £87,000 of those costs were due to legal claims from the injured parties.

The accidents covered a range of incidents, from standing on nails to trips on moorland areas and bites from animals.

The report to the Authority’s People and Culture Committee says the warm weather in this period led to more moorland fires – and this brought a number of issues.

Under the “slips, trips and falls” category, the report says: “We saw accidents at wildfire/fires in open, due to the relatively dry and hot summer.

“Walking on moorland is difficult due to its uneven nature and can result in trips, falls and ‘going over on ankles.’

“PPE in recent years has been improved for wildfires, away from traditional fireboots, to dedicated wildfire boots, which provide improved ankle support, however whilst this is an improvement, will not eliminate such injuries.

“Given the trend of warmer summers and wetter, milder winters, this is a trend that is set to continue.”

“(Other) injuries are spread across such things as falling off chairs, tripping up/down internal stairs and one fall off a short extension ladder, whilst gaining entry over a fence at an incident.”

In the “exposure to” category, some staff suffered smoke inhalation, and the report adds: “There was also one event that resulted in five staff being exposed to a minor skin irritant whilst inspecting a fire blanket.”

The report says there were four accidents involving “non-employees” in the period. Two involved contract cleaners.

The report adds: “One accident worthy of note related to an RTC (Road Traffic Collision) involving a fire appliance responding to an emergency, which collided with a third party. The occupant of the car received slight injuries and was taken to hospital for a precautionary check up.”

One of the accident categories is “contact with” – which includes injuries from hot surfaces, sharp objects or animals. In total there were 26 accidents involving staff that fall into this category.

Members will be told that there is no clear pattern in the injuries in this category.

But it added: “The one exception was four scalds from hot water boilers, located next to kitchen sinks.

“These occurred in the new HQ and Spen station.

“Some were operator error (e.g. accidentally catching the lever with their arm or hand was underneath), however some were due to an intermittent fault where they would discharge small amounts of water.

“These were inspected with no faults found, a couple we relocated to reduce the risk of accidental operation.

“There have been no recent cases.”

The new £31m headquarters in Birkenshaw officially opened in December, but staff had been based there for months before the official opening.

The new Spen Valley Fire Station, a replacement for the former Cleckheaton Station, has since opened on the same site. In some areas the accident rate has improved.

The report says in the 2024/25 period the service had a problem with equipment falling out of lockers in new style fire engines.

It says: “Last year there were eight accidents resulting in items of operational equipment becoming dislodged during transit in fire appliances and falling from operational lockers when opened, striking Firefighters.

“The majority of these involved the new appliances which had recently been introduced.

“Some were operator error as they were not as familiar with their operation as the old appliances.

“However in other cases, improvements were made to the stowage design to reduce the risk.

“As a result, there was only one such accident in 25-26. This is a great example of learning lessons from safety events and using them to make improvements.”

At the meeting, held in the new headquarters, Mark Dixon, head of occupational health at the service, pointed out that the number of accidents had dropped dramatically over the years.

In 2005/06 there were around 300 accidents, while there were just 128 in the past year.

He also told members the cost of accidents to the service was down by over £60,000 compared to the previous year, adding: “There are good news stories in this report.

“In some cases there are things we can do to try and reduce accidents. In other cases there isn’t much we can do to reduce risks other than continue to train staff.”