Fire brigade response times in many parts of England and Wales are getting slower according to data obtained by 5 live Investigates through a Freedom of Information request. Critics say that a reduction in the number of firefighters, appliances and fire stations are now putting lives at risk. Deborah Gibbons says her father Bernard Lewis, 82, may have still been alive a second appliance had reached their burning cottage on the the Wirral on Merseyside sooner.