Silsden and Steeton councillors will highlight remote areas where fire safety cover needs to be improved.

The town and parish councillors will investigate locations that have not got smoke alarms.

Local firefighters have, for several years, fitted free smoke alarms to homes across the Keighley area.

Councillors believe outlying farms and houses are particularly at risk because they are further away from fire stations and sometimes hard to find.

The offer came during a meeting last week between Silsden and Steeton councillors and officials from West Yorkshire Fire Service.

The councillors wanted to pass on concerns about fire service proposals to reduce fire cover across the district due to public spending cuts.

Silsden fire station lost its second engine earlier this year and Keighley station is due to lose one of its two engines.

Silsden town councillor Adrian Naylor said the fire service had carried out a risk management assessment before making its cuts proposals.

But he feared the needs of rural communities had not been fully taken into account, particularly with regard to the number of smoke detectors.

He said councillors were concerned about the time it took fire appliances to reach buildings in outlying areas, particularly if they had to come from stations further away.

Fire chiefs say the response time for fires in Silsden is eight minutes from Silsden station, 20 seconds longer from Keighley station, 16 minutes from Bingley, and 24 minutes from Ilkley.

Coun Naylor said: “Our point was that a lot of damage can be done in that period of time and if the crew is not familiar with the area more time could be taken.”

Fire officials told councillors the Bingley fire engine had to go to the Silsden/Steeton area two or three times a year, because Keighley and Silsden engines were on other calls.

But Coun Naylor said: “We’re concerned that we’re getting to the position where we have very little spare capacity if anything happens that’s out of the ordinary.”