A firefighters’ union has claimed the fire service us issuing “false information” to the public in order to justify cuts.

At a press conference in Witham, Essex Fire Brigade Union claimed Essex County Fire and Rescue Service used “highly selective statistics” in its latest public consultation document, which asks the public how the fire service can improve.

The document states “the number of people killed in fires is thankfully low and decreasing” and the number of house fires in the county showed “no clear pattern or trend” with the number of deaths or casualties.

But the union claims these facts are based on national trends rather than the regional figures for Essex, which it says are vastly different.

According to figures from the Fire Statistics Monitor, the union highlighted the number of house fires fell nationally by 39 per cent between 2003/4 and 2013/14.

In Essex, they fell by just six per cent.

Using the same source, the number of deaths caused by fires fell by 39 per cent between 2003/4 to 2013/14.

In contrast, the was no change in Essex over the same ten-year period.

Riccardo la Torre, union chairman, told Tuesday’s press conference: “We have great concerns about the lack of information provided to the members of the Essex public about what the proposed changes are going to mean.

“The little information they have put in, we have concerns about how that has been presented in terms of national trends and Essex trends.”

Mav Longman, brigade organiser, added: “It appears the figures have been selected and carefully presented to support a pre-determined outcome rather than to present a balanced decision.”

Adam Eckley, acting chief fire officer, said: “The Fire Brigades Union shared their response to the Integrated Risk Management Plan consultation at a workshop several weeks ago and will have the opportunity to do so again before tomorrow’s Fire Authority meeting.

“It is important that we listen to each and every contribution to the debate before we develop options for the next stage of the process, even though we might not agree with the FBU’s interpretation of the statistics on issues such as house fires.

“We designed the consultation so that this could happen and we are pleased with the numbers of people who took part in the first stage.”