South Yorkshire firefighters called to rescue pets from a sticky situation more than once a week

Firefighters had to rescue hapless South Yorkshire pets from rivers, trees and other sticky situations more than once a week last year.

National Fire Chiefs Council guidance says crews must be equipped to deal with incidents involving animals in peril, to prevent members of the public putting their lives at risk to save their pets.

Home Office figures show South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue came to the aid of pets 58 times in 2018-19.

They made up 75 per cent of the 77 animal assistance callouts crews attended over the year, with the remainder attributed to livestock and wild animals.

South Yorkshire's firefighters were most commonly needed to free pets who had got themselves wedged in tight spots or entangled, such as in fences or drain covers, with crews attending 32 incidents during the year.

The next most common predicament involved pets stuck at height, such as up trees or on roofs, accounting for 16 callouts.

A SYFRS spokesman said: “While animal rescues are generally dealt with by our RSPCA colleagues, we do get called to assist from time to time, mainly to prevent members of the public putting themselves at risk by attempting to carry out their own rescue.

“Our firefighters are highly trained and highly capable when it comes to dealing with complex incidents like this and, given we are a nation of animal lovers, we are happy to help where appropriate.

“We have an excellent team of control operators within our control room, too, that help ensure incidents such as these don’t affect our ability to r espond to other more serious calls should they occur.”

While fire and rescue services encourage people concerned about an animal's welfare to contact the RSPCA first, to avoid calling crews out unnecessarily, the animal rescue charity says the assistance of firefighters is a vital help to their officers.

In 2018-19, SYFRS firefighters attended to 37 animals trapped or entangled.

They also carried out 20 animal rescues from heights, 11 water or mud rescues, while five creatures were retrieved from below ground.

They were also called to one harmed or injured animal, one heavy animal in need of lifting and two uncategorised incidents.