The service is run under the command of the
Chief Fire Officer and an executive board, and provides emergency response from 33 strategically located fire stations, divided into three delivery groups: • Northern • Eastern • Western Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service has its headquarters and training school at Pirehill near the town of
Stone in mid-Staffordshire. Their fire control centre used to be at Pirehill, but was closed after its amalgamation with fire control of the
West Midlands Fire Service in March 2014. Both brigades operate under a joint control centre situated in
Birmingham. The county's maintenance workshops are located at the Joint Emergency Transport Facility in Trentham Lakes industrial park, a joint workshop with Staffordshire Police. Of the 33 strategically located
fire stations, only
Stafford,
Tamworth Belgrave and Sandyford operate on a completely 24/7 wholetime duty system.
Longton,
Hanley,
Newcastle-under-Lyme,
Cannock and
Burton-upon-Trent operate as wholetime plus
retained stations (WDS/RDS), which means, along with a 24-hour station-based complement of firefighters, they have retained on-call "back-up" personnel that, when required, crew the second
fire engine housed at the fire station, as well as some of the specialist appliances that may be stationed there. All wholetime firefighters work the four "watch" system. This produces an eight-day rota, with crews operating on a "two-days-on, two-nights-on, four-days-off" system.
Leek and
Lichfield fire stations operate as day-crewed and retained: firefighters respond from the fire station as wholetime firefighters between the hours of 8:00am and 6:00pm with a retained on-call crew available if needed to crew other appliances based at the station. After 6:00pm the stations become retained on-call only, and the fire appliances are crewed by the same firefighters but not from the station itself. All other Staffordshire fire stations operate the "on-call" retained duty system. All retained firefighters respond from home or work, and are notified by a pager, and, therefore, have to live or work within five minutes driving time of their station to meet strict
Home Office response times. ==Performance==