FIRE and rescue services can no longer ensure public safety, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has warned as it revealed the full extent of Tory cuts across Britain.

Between 2010 and this year, 21 per cent of front-line firefighters’ jobs — 12,000 — have been axed due to government cuts, new data shows.

The FBU also found that 4,000 firefighters have both a full-time and an on-call contract and are counted as two workers in the data, meaning that firefighter numbers available are even lower than the data suggests.