More than 1,000 firefighter vacancies are leaving communities across large parts of Scotland without reliable fire cover, MSPs have been warned.
The Fire Brigades Union raised concerns about the scale of shortages in Scotland’s retained duty system during evidence at Holyrood on Wednesday.
Retained firefighters are on-call crews who respond to emergencies in their local communities rather than working permanently at a fire station.
They are a crucial part of the service outside Scotland’s major towns and cities, particularly across rural and remote areas.
Colin Brown, executive council member of the Fire Brigades Union, told the Scottish Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee there were “over 1,000 vacancies on the RDS system in Scotland”.
He warned that the shortage meant “huge swathes of Scotland’s land mass” could be left without fire cover.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service says its on-call stations are intended to provide cover to local communities 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
On-call firefighters carry a pager and have to remain within an agreed response time of their station during the hours when they are available. Recruitment for the service remains open throughout the year.
Figures previously considered by Holyrood showed that Scotland had 240 retained duty system fire stations and 311 retained crews as of March 2025.
The FBU has previously warned that recruitment and retention problems can result in as many as 200 of those 311 retained appliances being unavailable on a particular day.
Brown gave evidence as MSPs began examining spending pressures ahead of the Scottish Government’s 2027-28 budget.
The committee heard from representatives of the fire service, policing, criminal defence and community justice as part of its pre-budget scrutiny.
Official papers prepared for the hearing show the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has a resource budget of £353.6 million for 2026-27, alongside £48.4 million of capital funding.
That compares with resource funding of £333.8 million and capital funding of £47 million in the previous year.
The same committee papers acknowledge that both Scotland’s police and fire workforces have reduced in recent years and say future workforce planning will have to take account of frontline demand.
Brown told MSPs the pressures on the fire service formed part of wider problems across Scotland’s justice system.
The union has repeatedly argued that staffing levels, recruitment difficulties and the condition of the fire service estate require greater investment.
Retained recruitment has proved particularly difficult in some rural communities, where firefighters have to be available close enough to a station to respond quickly while often also holding another job.
The FBU has previously said those problems are not caused by funding alone, pointing to depopulation and other socioeconomic pressures in some remote communities.
The warning came during the Criminal Justice Committee’s first evidence session examining the 2027-28 budget. The Scottish Government is expected to publish its spending plans in early December.