SCOTLAND’S fire service is facing a “perfect fire triangle” of cuts which puts lives at risk, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has said.

FBU Scotland secretary Denise Christie made the analogy as she argued that the Scottish government had failed to protect lifeline services.

Six years ago ministers merged eight regional fire brigades into the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) which is now the largest organisation of its kind in Britain.

“In 2013 we were promised if we amalgamated fire brigades [in Scotland] into one service we could stop the cuts,” Ms Christie told the People’s Assembly Scotland conference last weekend. 

“But since 2013 we’ve seen a different picture.”

She said ministers and the SFRS maintain that all fire stations have stayed open since 2013 but argued that this was “irrelevant if you’ve still got those fire stations if you haven’t got the firefighters to crew them.”

Ms Christie said bosses wanted “to take away night-time cover of fire stations” and leave them crewed by part-time “retained” firefighters who would not be able to attend fires as quickly.

And the introduction of “rapid response units” to replace traditional fire engines meant crews were being dispatched with space for only “four firefighters and less equipment.”

She also highlighted cuts to fire inspections, telling trade unionists: “If we’ve got less people going in to do those fire inspections, they’re going to miss things.”

Addressing the FBU’s rejection of a recent pay offer, she said: “A firefighter is £6,000 worse off today than they were in 2010.

“We’re not in the job of looking for a pay rise for our members that’s self-funded. There has to be long-term, sustainable funding.”

Ms Christie also said it was an injustice that fire control rooms, in which 85 per cent of the SFRS’s female workers are employed, pay staff 5 per cent less than other parts of the service.

SFRS deputy chief officer David McGown said:  “Since the creation of the service in 2013 we have attended at every emergency call while the overall number of fires has fallen.

“We have also continued to develop, and deliver, a wide range of extensive prevention work to reduce the changing risks facing Scotland.

“We have done this against a challenging financial backdrop, which has seen a reduction in our annual resource funding in cash terms of £20.8 million — 17.3 per cent in real terms, taking inflation into account.”