  This article concerns the statistical modelling of emergency service response
times. We apply advanced methods from spatial survival analysis to deliver
inference for data collected by the London Fire Brigade on response times to
reported dwelling fires. Existing approaches to the analysis of these data have
been mainly descriptive; we describe and demonstrate the advantages of a more
sophisticated approach. Our final parametric proportional hazards model
includes harmonic regression terms to describe how response time varies with
time-of-day and shared spatially correlated frailties on an auxiliary grid for
computational efficiency.
  We investigate the short-term impact of fire station closures in 2014. Whilst
the London Fire Brigade are working hard to keep response times down, our
findings suggest there is a limit to what can be achieved logistically: the
present article identifies areas around the now closed Belsize, Downham,
Kingsland, Knightsbridge, Silvertown, Southwark, Wesminster and Woolwich fire
stations in which there should perhaps be some concern as to the provision of
fire services.
