Firefighters are taking the longest time in six years to get to house fires across West Yorkshire.

The average response time to dwelling fires by the county’s brigade in 2014/15 was 7 mins and 31 seconds, according to figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

This was 45 seconds slower than in 2009/10, when the average response time was 6 mins and 57 secs, making the average response time the slowest it has been since 2009/10, when the current recording system began.

The average response time has risen by 34 seconds in just a year from 6 mins and 47 seconds in 2013/14.

The brigade says more resources are being devoted to fire prevention and new fire stations have been opened at Rastrick and Dewsbury to aid crews’ responses.

A West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “All services are facing challenges maintaining current levels of service with significant reductions in Government grants.

“We are meeting this challenge by focusing on fire prevention to reduce demand, and relocation of our fire stations to areas where they are able to respond in the fastest time to areas of greatest risk.

“The reported figure is an average and we continue to seek to ensure that our response time into higher risk areas is as quick as possible with the resources available to us.

“We provide a response time to dwelling fires that is quicker than the national average. In West Yorkshire the numbers of fires deaths and injuries continue to fall, a testament to our risk based approach. Continued reductions in funding in the next round of spending cuts will make this challenge even harder”.

The Fire Brigade Union says the government has cut funding to the fire and rescue services by 30% during the course of the last parliament, resulting in nearly 7,000 frontline job losses. Consultations are currently ongoing in parts of England about further proposed cuts.

The average response time to dwelling fires in England in 2014-15 was 7 minutes 45 seconds, an increase of 20 seconds since last year. This is a continuation of a general long term increase in response times to fires in dwellings.

Of the 46 fire services, 37 showed an increase in average response time to primary fires between 2013-14 and 2014- 15.