Just six fire engines in rural Cornwall? Three would have been too many. Hope no-one local set the chip pan on fire.
Thread drift.
Speaking as a 24 year volunteer firefighter (as well as 39 yer pilot), and having just returned from driving one of four fire trucks to a car accident call, I defend the choice of the emergency services to dispatch as many trucks as they could possibly think they could need at a call of unknown severity! In the history of our fire department, before I was a member, it is told that everyone responded to a car accident call, with the rescue truck, to find the driver trapped in a burning car, with no fire truck. He burned to death, as the fire fighters had nothing more than hand held fire extinguishers. Since then, everything rolls, until it is not needed, even if it only blocks traffic for the safety of the scene. There is certainly a plan in place for the response to a second call for service in the mean time.
Were you to be in the midst of a burning plane on a motorway, with other injured people around, you would not be counting fire trucks, other than to hope there are enough to provide you prompt and total service you suddenly want.
Remind yourself that depending upon how the trucks are run, there may only be one firefighter per truck (ours are nearly always just one). So three trucks might mean only three firefighters, might you want more? More trucks. When I pull up to the fire hall to get a truck, I can take a fire truck, or drive my personal car to the fire call. I'll get there faster and with more safety in a marked lighted fire truck, and might have that one additional needed piece of equipment aboard when I get there.
So give us firefighters a break, and a kind wave of hello, rather than criticizing, and trying to out think how we should provide emergency services...
Rant over, return to the topic.....