Major incident declared by North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident on Tuesday 19 July 2022, the service said in a statement published the same day. In the same statement it said the status had been stood down.

The service said that from noon until midnight on that day it received 172 emergency calls and responded to 57 incidents. Six of those incidents required more than four appliances, and its largest incident required nine¹.

The service thanked the public for support during what it called an extremely testing time. It said many people opened their doors and offered refreshments and facilities to crews on the ground, including a local primary school and a supermarket¹.

The statement does not give the reason the major incident was declared, the locations of the incidents, or any figures for casualties or damage. Those details have not been reported in the statement.

Why it matters for households

A major incident declaration is a signal about how emergency services are organising their response, and this one covered the City of York and the rest of North Yorkshire. The service said its resilience plans were tested during the period, and that it kept the ability to respond to risks and threats to life across the area¹. The declaration was stood down the same day it was made, so the period of heightened response described here had ended by the time the update was published. The service has not set out in this statement any instructions for households, and no advice to residents is included in it.

For households, the practical point is that a major incident can be declared and stood down within a single day, and that the declaration itself is a statement about the emergency response rather than a warning to the public. What a declaration means, and how it differs from a warning issued to households, is set out in the guide to what it means when a major incident is declared. The wider pattern of such declarations and how they are handled is covered in the major incidents hub, and general household preparation in the UK preparedness hub.

What happens next

No further steps have been announced in the statement. The service said only that the major incident status had been stood down and thanked those who had assisted¹.