For emergencies

FAQs About The Fire Service

Answers to the most common questions

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The Fire Service

Our Water Officer would be pleased to hear from you if you are aware of a leaking fire hydrant, missing yellow hydrant sign or a knocked over yellow post in Buckinghamshire or Milton Keynes. Please click here to provide details of a hydrant related matter. If the structure is not yellow then your water or gas company will be able to help.

If you need to get a copy of an incident report please send request to us by clicking here. Make sure you include your name, contact details, the date of the incident and the address where the incident occurred. Once we have received your enquiry we will contact you regarding the next steps. Please note, there may be a charge for this service.

Although we make every effort to provide the best possible service, we may sometimes make mistakes. Your complaints are important to us. Where something has gone wrong, it helps us to put it right and improve our service. Details on how to make a complaint can be found here.

Further reading

We are sorry, but we do not fill ponds because using cold chlorinated water from a town water main may kill any fish and small creatures living in it. If a natural pond dries out, it is a matter for the RSPCA, an animal rescue society or the Environment Agency. These organisations have specialist knowledge, and will be able to visit and identify actions to be taken to help any local wildlife being affected by the dry conditions.

Fire services are not allowed to fill swimming pools as the water is the property of the water companies and should be paid for.

We have some 14,000 fire hydrants in Buckinghamshire. 5,900 are in roads, and 8,100 are in pavements or verges. While it is an offence to park over a hydrant when it is required for firefighting, it is not an offence to park over it when it is not required. It is quite possible that several hundred hydrants will have cars parked on top of them at any one time!

It is illegal to obstruct a fire hydrant, but the offence is only committed when the hydrant is required for firefighting. In the event of an emergency, a fire officer is empowered to move a car, for example by breaking a window and releasing the handbrake. Outside of emergency operations we can only hope that people are considerate and leave fire hydrants clear.