Having been talking to some in the Fire service, the coverage in the event of major flooding, civil disturbances, Terrorist incident, CBRN, major transport disruption and major incident resillience coverage are the main reasons for looking at a Helicopter. No Mention of firefighting at all.
There were trials to carry fire fighters and cutting equipment done a couple of years ago but the weights involved (Police EC145) were not helping the aircraft performance. There have been huge advances in the cutting equipment power sources as well as the performance of the aircraft available so it appears the idea is back on the table.