Contact West Midlands Fire Service
There's plenty of ways to get in touch with us and we welcome feedback from our communities.
Contact form
The easiest way to get in touch with us is by using our contact form. You can submit a general enquiry, or a compliment, comment or complaint using this form.
We've provided some buttons below to some of the areas of our service we are asked about the most.
Prefer to contact us by phone?
We appreciate that sometimes it's easier to speak to us by phone.
You can contact our various departments, stations and teams directly, or if you're not sure, use our general contact number.
General Contact Number
03300 589 000Accounts
0121 380 6925Complaints
0121 380 6299Commercial Training
0121 380 6429Fire Safety
0121 380 7500Payroll
0121 380 6310Pensions
0121 380 6320Press Office
0121 380 6101Safe and Well
0800 389 5525Frequently Asked Questions
We get asked a lot of questions by our communities on a range of subjects.
You can search or browse through them here or visit our full frequently asked questions page to see more.
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FAQ Categories
If you can smell burning, particularly if you don’t know what’s causing it, it’s vital you dial 999 immediately.
Just because you can see it, doesn’t mean it won’t get out of control. Even if for some reason you don’t feel like it’s an emergency or not worth our time, trust us, it is!
Always dial 999 when there a smell of burning, or a fire, no matter how small.
For more details about reporting emergencies to us, please see our emergencies page.
We adopt an assertive, safe and effective approach to how we manage incidents.
Whilst there have been some fatalities to firefighters around the country when attending incidents, and they can never be hazard-free, we’ve developed a very positive approach to health and safety.
As an organisation, we set extremely high standards and expectations in this area. Our firefighters work within a ‘competency framework,’ as well as effective personal protective equipment such as helmets and other fire kit.
At incidents, safe systems of work are established with a high level of command and control. Plus, we constantly stress the importance of personal safety to our staff.
Away from incidents, our commitment to health safety and well-being is maintained across all areas of activity.
If you are unsuccessful in an application to be a firefighter with us, you can apply again in 12 months from your notification from us that you were not successful.
Due to the application process requiring a national insurance number, which you would have already entered on your previous application, the system may show an error stating the NI number has already been used.
If you experience this difficulty, please email our recruitment team at recruitment@wmfs.net with your details and this can be reset for you.
We strongly discourage business owners from introducing a sleeping risk to premises by permitting anyone to sleep in a premises that is not designed to provide sleeping accommodation.
Business owners should be mindful to prevent unauthorised sleeping on the premises, such as employees who have not requested permission, or contract cleaning staff.
Further information on fire risk assessments for premises used as sleeping accommodation – which differ from normal commercial premises, can be found on the .gov website.
In terms of the evidence required, the “one or two sentences” is intended to allow you to explain your circumstances and why you feel you are eligible to apply. You are not limited in what you can say here if you feel you need to give an extra explanation. The guidance makes clear that in all cases, the member or eligible decision maker must provide a short statement in their own words to confirm the decision that was made, the reasons for the decision, and what they would have done differently had the discrimination identified by the courts not occurred.
The next element of the form asks you to then support that statement with any additional evidence, which may take a number of forms. Unfortunately, we cannot provide a comprehensive list of what evidence is required, as we have to judge each case on its merits and evidence could differ significantly from individual to individual. Examples of what you could submit as evidence are below, but please note this is not a comprehensive list.
Opt-Out
- information you provided us in the years before or during the remedy period about your intention regarding your continued membership of the Scheme
- information you provided to us in the years before or during the remedy period about your intention regarding your retirement intentions
- information you provided to us in the years before or during the remedy period about your intention regarding your request to leave or not join the scheme
- information you provided to confirm that you are a litigant in the “injury to feelings” claim in respect of the discrimination
- a completed opt-out form stating the reason for opting out
- a statement from you that you opted out due to the remedy and why. (If you don’t have any other evidence but can explain your motivations).
Additional Service
- an added pension account in FPS 2015
- some other form of additional pension provision
- information you provided to us in the years before or during the remedy period about your intention regarding paying additional contributions to increase benefits
- information you provided to confirm that you are a litigant in the injury to feelings claim in respect of the discrimination
- a statement from you that you would have bought Additional Service in the Legacy Scheme but didn’t due to the discrimination and why
- you can find this list of example evidence and further information in the FPS Member website guidance.