A ‘POSITIVE accident reporting culture’ is said to have contributed to statistics showing a growth in the number of North Yorkshire firefighters injured at work.

Home Office figures show that 36 crew members in the brigade were injured during training in 2017/18.

Carl Boasman, head of professional standards at the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said necessarily ‘realistic’ training exercises were not without risk and helped to prepare staff to meet a wide range of hazards.

A further 14 firefighters were hurt while carrying out operational duties and 12 during routine activities, with the incidents recorded reflecting a rise since 2010.

Mr Boasman added: “The health, safety and welfare of our staff is a priority for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and we work closely with an active safety committee to ensure that preventable accidents are kept to a minimum.

“We recognise that our firefighters work in environments that can be extremely hazardous and at times, individuals may place themselves in dangerous situations to protect others. “We have a positive safety culture within the Service and train firefighters to operate as safely as possible, using a wide range of nationally recognised procedures and techniques that are fully risk assessed and evaluated.

“The number of risk critical incidents that a firefighter must prepare for is wide and varied and we have increased our training to reflect this and whilst accidents whilst training are thankfully rare, we encourage staff to report all injuries, however minor.”