A fire service spent £350,000 plugging staffing shortages thousands of times in a year, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed.

Essex County Fire & Rescue Service (ECFRS) moved firefighters from their usual bases to elsewhere in the county on 2,570 occasions in 2023.

Crews have been left “exhausted” after being frequently made to travel “vast distances” to cover their colleagues, the Fire Brigades Union said.

ECFRS head of response Craig McLellan said resources were flexibly deployed to ensure the “best protection” for the public.

Figures obtained by the BBC revealed back-up cover for major stations was called for seven times a day on average.

Crews have been asked to travel across the county to cover their colleagues, making journeys such as Waltham Abbey to Braintree and Hawkwell, near Southend-on-Sea, to Witham.

It has meant smaller communities being left without any nearby protection, with on-call firefighters being drafted elsewhere.

The total appliance movements cost ECFRS £350,011 in 2023, with on-call officers being paid for each call-out to provide cover.

There were 304 fire engines moved in August, with 301 in October and 278 in December.

The brigade spent £60,960 in September alone as it worked to combat shortages.

Riccardo la Torre, a national officer at the Fire Brigades Union, said the service was at “crisis point”.

“Fire and rescue services shouldn’t have to move fire engines and firefighters around vast distances while scrambling to provide adequate protection for the public,” he told the BBC.

“Under-resourcing adds huge pressure to the work of firefighters, who are often forced to push themselves beyond reasonable limits to keep the public safe.

“Crews are left exhausted or without adequate facilities when constantly moved around.”

In March, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) told ECFRS it must do more to improve the availability of its fire engines.

The report said availability had been “deteriorating”, with more engines becoming unavailable for call outs.

For the year 2019-2020, there were an average of 10 a month unavailable – but by 2022-2023 it had nearly doubled to 19.

It also stated the service was “heavily reliant” on overtime to keep its crews operational.

“This is unsustainable and dangerous,” Mr la Torre added.

“Instead of spending on trying to plug the gaps in a failing model, fire and rescue services should be investing in their workforces.”

When approached by the BBC, Mr McLellan said a dedicated resource management unit had been set up in January and was reducing daily appliance movements.

He said challenges in recruiting new firefighters had left the service stretched at times.

“No longer are there quite so many people working in their local butchers or bakers round the corner from the station who can attend calls,” the senior officer said.

“It’s always going to be a challenge but people can come off the run for many reasons.

“Sometimes it can be availability, sometimes it’s down to the welfare of crew who have been out to a large incident.

“We definitely need to realise that, at times, there will be some stations unavailable.”

The officer argued appliances were deployed “dynamically” to ensure Essex’s key stations were always manned.

The FOI showed that in January 2023 the service moved appliances on 38 occasions.

However, this had increased to 175 during December.

Mr McLellan rejected Mr la Torre’s claim that staff were exhausted by the movements.

“Moving several appliances on the same day is actually looking after their welfare,” he claimed.

“We value all our staff, we realise they would want to stay at their base stations and so would we.

“But what I would say is we will utilise our resources countywide to ensure we have the best protection for the public.”