NORTH Yorkshire's fire chiefs are to review where their stations and engines are based and how quickly they can respond to 999 calls.

The study of the region's fire cover will be carried out during the rest of this year and any proposals for changing arrangements will go out to public consultation in 2015. If changes are agreed, they would start coming into force the following April.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said five years of "incident information" and the response to these calls will be analysed if it is considering altering how many fire stations and engines it has, where they are based, and the way they are crewed.

A statement said the service had to ensure it "balances cost and resources" and "take into account the impact of a reduction in incidents over the last ten years", which saw it attend 7,659 calls in 2012/13 compared with 11,248 in 2002/03, a 32 per cent decrease.

It also said firefighters must be able to respond to "increasingly frequent large weather-related events", such as flooding.

A series of public meetings will be held over the coming weeks, including at Clifford Street fire station in York between 1.30pm and 3pm on April 7 and at Selby Library between 3pm and 5pm on April 14.

More information and a survey can be found at northyorksfire.gov.uk, and views can be submitted until April 28.