CUTS to fire and rescue services are putting lives at risk as firefighters take longer to get to incidents, their union warned today.

The latest Home Office figures show that the time taken for appliances to travel to fires is steadily increasing — including to serious incidents where lives could be under threat.

The figures show that the time taken to get to such incidents increased by 11 seconds in the last year alone — and has increased by two minutes and 42 seconds since 1994-5.