Not all calls overall. But historically the 'bread and butter' of the Fire Brigade is small outdoor and rubbish fires, a significant reduction in them is a significant reduction in calls. Of course there has been great progress in Home Fire Safety, Automatic Fire Alarm call reduction and also person shuts in lifts (a big problem in London with 5000+ taller buildings). So overall with several bad summer added ot this has shown around a one third reduction in calls.

But the hot weather is a multi-fold issue for fire services; most commonly, kids go out to play instead of being stuck indoors on their X box, they get bored, so they set things on fire... grass, rubbish and so on. Because it is dry it spreads and can become a larger fire requiring more than one fire engine. More kids see the Fire engines arrive, see that as a bit of adventure so off they go again and more kids light more fires. Fire crews get stretched, so attendance times are longer, fires develop more.

So, if a small County Fire Brigade that may receive 100 calls per day sees a rise of 20-30 calls per day during summer months, A reduction of say 3000 calls on their 30,000 annual total is significant when it comes to their grant settlement. The same can be said for big Metropolitan Fire Brigades, but just increase the numbers fivefold.

I,m really lucky that I have been able to get away from the searing heat where I live, to a cooler place, into my 3rd week now, but dreading to see how parched my lawns at home will be when I enventually make it back ,which could be another 2 weeks yet

Anyone know how agriculture is faring? After a succession of washout summers reducing many crop yields and pushing up prices, we really could do with a strong harvest year and a fallback from the ridiculous cost of grain-related products and many vegetables.

Whilst loving the warm/hot, sunny & dry spell, I really don't want to there to be too much of a negative impact on crops.

On the plus side, the nation's beleagured hoteliers & seaside resorts must be praying this weather lasts well into the school summer holidays

After the last 6 years, anything other than the current conditions until August 31st and I think we will have been short changed! 

We get very little rain here even during unsettled spells but after about 2 weeks of no rainfall at all it is starting to look more like southern Spain out there.

6mm so far here and nothing in sight for the foreseeable future

One Farmer I spoke to after turning over the recently cut hay in the field at the back of me said...It is okay for the hay but,,,,,The rain is needed now  to get the grass  growing again...The cattle and horses need it.

The corn fields around me are already golden and looking ready to harvest.  Farmers have irrigation sprays in fields of root crops and they've looking good.  

Interesting stuff CFS, and welcome to the forum . My son is a firefighter at Canterbury, and I'll be seeing him on Friday, so I'll get his take on how the recent weather has affected them. There does seem to have been an in increase in vehicle fires lately, but that might just be down to my perception.

I'm a member of the Red Cross Fire and Emergency Support Service, and we've had no shouts in this area for 3 months! The same certainly wouldn't be true, if we'd had heavy thunderstorms - house strikes, flooding, and power outages would be giving us a fair few.

This time last year some trees were shedding their leaves due to disease from the prolonged wet conditions, now some are taking on autumnal hues and shedding their leaves in the drought conditions!

3.4mm here thats 127.45mm less than July 2012 total

Prolonged it is and shall be  thus......

Chew Valley reservoir  now   79% full

Last year at this time           1005%   full

July   2011                           61%    full

On BBC news about wild fires raging across the UK and even hotter next week.

Is that 105% or was it under a few hundred feet of water last year?

Why do the media always have to do this? "And there's worse to come". Yes Monday and Tuesday will be hot, but unlikely to beat the 32C we have already seen, and then from Wednesday there will be a cool down to low 20s by the weekend. To suggest next week will be "even hotter" is just total crap.

Just 89.6mm here since 1st April 

The lowest April to July totals I can find for local stations were 108mm in 1976 and 133mm in 1868.

Grass is not looking that parched though. Not like 2003 and 1976 would have been worse still as it was the culmination of over 5 years of consistently well below average rainfall.

Grass round here looking worse than it did in the 2011 drought, although trees look heathier - the difference between a short spell of no rain combined with heat/sun and a much longer spell of much reduced rainfall.

Grass needs moisture near the surface, hence why it is looking so dry.

I expect August, September and October to be months with above average rainfall.