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The 999 Service That Runs On Goodwill Is Running Out Of Volunteers

ended 11. August 2026

July 2026 was the busiest month on record for wildfires, with fire crews across England and Wales tackling 393 in a single month and more than 716 so far this year, per the National Fire Chiefs Council. Outdoor fires were climbing before this drought even started, up 6.3% in the year to March 2025, with total call-outs up 22% over the decade, per Home Office fire statistics. More heat, more fires, more shouts.

Behind every one of those blue lights sits a quiet problem. A big chunk of the crews answering the call aren't full-time staff at all. They're volunteers and on-call workers with day jobs, and their numbers are falling off a cliff.

Volunteer police, the special constables, have collapsed from a peak of 20,343 in March 2012 to just 5,304 by September 2025. That's a fall of nearly three quarters, per the Home Office. They dropped another 8.8% in the last year alone.

On-call firefighters, the retained crews who drop their normal job to answer the pager, now make up around a third of the fire workforce, roughly 16,499 people, according to the Local Government Association's 2025 Firefighters' Workforce Survey. The trouble is holding onto them. 77% of fire services say they struggle to recruit on-call firefighters and 70% say they struggle to keep them.

And that's before you count the rest of the 999 volunteer army. The RNLI runs on over 7,800 volunteer lifeboat and shore crew who launched more than 9,000 times last year, per the RNLI. HM Coastguard leans on over 3,500 volunteer rescue officers, per HM Coastguard. Mountain Rescue in England and Wales is entirely unpaid, its volunteers giving 167,411 hours across 3,093 call-outs in 2024, per Mountain Rescue England and Wales. Community First Responders, the neighbours who reach a cardiac arrest before the ambulance, number around 3,000 active across the ambulance trusts studied, per the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives. Then there's St John Ambulance, down to 44,385 volunteers after shedding nearly 4,000 in a single year, per Civil Society, and the blood bikers who ferry NHS samples through the night for free.

Meanwhile formal volunteering across England has slid from 23% of adults giving time each month before the pandemic to 17% in 2024-25, per the Community Life Survey. Fewer hands, more fires.

Here's the bit that lands on employers, and small businesses in particular. If your employee is an on-call firefighter, you are under no legal duty to release them for a shout, and you get no compensation for the disruption, says the National Fire Chiefs Council. It runs on goodwill, plain and simple. Special constables are much the same. Plenty of employers hand over a few days of paid leave under Employer Supported Policing, but nobody makes them and nobody pays them back.

Armed forces reservists are the exception that proves the rule. Their job is legally protected, so you can't sack someone for being a reservist, but you can at least claw some money back. Employers can claim up to £110 a day toward the cost of covering the work while a reservist is mobilised, and small and medium firms get an extra £500 a month on top, per gov.uk.

For a small business the maths is uncomfortable. You want to back the person who runs toward a burning car when everyone else runs away. But if they're vanishing two or three times a week and you're a team of five, that's your goodwill quietly subsidising the state's rota. Expecting the corner shop to plug the gaps in the fire service is like asking the bloke who lends you his umbrella to pay for your taxi home too.

Right now the whole safety net is held together with goodwill and sticky-back plastic, and like the NHS through Covid it looks like it's coping right up until the moment it isn't. The numbers are falling, the call-outs are rising, and one bad summer that sticky-back plastic loses its grip. We need to shore it up now, not after it peels apart.

The fix isn't to slam the door on these workers. It's to decide where you stand before the pager ever goes off. Put it in writing, agree which hours they can be released, sort out whether callout time is paid or made up later, and check it against your Working Time rules. Back your team on paper, not just in the pub.

We'd like your views:

  • Would you employ someone knowing they might down tools and run to a fire mid-shift, or is that a risk a small business simply can't carry?
  • Should the government pay employers for releasing on-call firefighters and special constables the way it does for reservists, or is that gold-plating a role people choose to volunteer for?
  • Are collapsing volunteer numbers a sign of skint, stretched workers with nothing left to give, or of a country that's quietly stopped showing up for each other?
  • If a wildfire hit your town tomorrow and the nearest crew was 40 minutes away because the on-call station couldn't fill a shift, who would you blame?
  • Is it fair that the small employer carries the cost of keeping the emergency services running while the big corporates barely notice the odd absence?

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
"Let's be honest about what's really holding the emergency services together this summer. Goodwill and sticky-back plastic. Like the NHS through Covid, it looks like it's coping right up until the second it isn't. On-call firefighters, special constables, lifeboat crew, most of them do it around a day job and their bosses get next to nothing for lending them out. The numbers are falling, the call-outs are rising, and one hot summer the sticky-back plastic loses its grip and the whole thing peels apart. So we act now, not after it fails. Employers, decide where you stand before the pager ever goes off. Put it in writing, agree the hours your people can be released, sort out whether callout time is paid, and check your Working Time rules. Back your team on paper, not just in the pub. Goodwill built this safety net. Goodwill on its own won't hold it much longer."
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Editor
Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
Collapsing volunteer numbers aren't simply because people have become less willing to give something back. In some organisations, the culture itself is part of the problem.

Many retained, voluntary and uniformed services still operate with rigid hierarchies and a “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality. Younger generations increasingly expect flexibility, respect and a voice — things they already expect from their employers.

Ironically, hybrid working should have created a huge new pool of potential volunteers, particularly for on-call roles. But being available doesn't mean people will tolerate an outdated culture.

Emergency services need discipline and high standards, but that doesn't require old-fashioned management. If organisations can't recruit or retain younger people, they need to ask whether it's really society that has stopped showing up — or whether they haven't changed enough to make people want to join.
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Editor
Harvey Dhillon
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
Yes, I would hire an on-call firefighter. A small firm that releases a firefighter is helping to staff a fire engine, not indulging a hobby. The risk is manageable: they only turn out when they have booked themselves available.

Yes, the government should pay employers for firefighters and specials alike. The state will pay me up to £110 a day towards the extra cost of covering a mobilised reservist, called up for duty. For a firefighter it pays nothing equivalent. That is not gold-plating.

The country has not stopped caring. People are skint and stretched. In small firms I see plenty of willingness. What has gone is the slack.

There is nothing fair about it. Lose one of six for an afternoon and the work stops. A firm of 600 never feels it. So small employers quietly fund the fire service.

If a crew were 40 minutes away tomorrow, I would blame the people who set the funding, not the volunteers or their employers. Put the arrangement in writing before the pager goes off.
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Dawn Maria France
Editor-in-Chief at Yorkshire Women's Life Magazine
The UK’s emergency services are in crisis, with 393 wildfires recorded in July 2026 across England and Wales. This surge comes amidst a decline in volunteer and on-call firefighters, revealing weaknesses in the system. Small businesses bear the hidden costs of releasing employees to respond to emergencies, impacting productivity.

Government support, such as tax incentives or subsidies, could help sustain these vital roles.

The decline in volunteering reflects wider societal pressures, including rising living costs and job insecurity. Without action, understaffed fire crews may lead to slower responses and increased risks to public safety.

To protect communities, the government must strengthen recruitment, support employers, and ensure fire services have the resources they need. Relying on goodwill is not enough; investing in public safety is crucial.