The firefighters' union has claimed the government is cherry-picking data on its members' workload to justify a major restructure of the fire service.
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The ACT's Emergency Services Agency is in the middle of a structural overhaul, which includes ACT Fire and Rescue.
In an information paper on the changes, circulated earlier this year, the ESA suggested the utilisation of the fire service was dropping considerably, pointing to an annual reduction of 10 per cent in the number of structure fires being attended.
"ACTF&R is an organisation that requires significant investment, but is not highly utilised due to the relatively low number of fire emergencies. This suggests that there is scope for reform and service improvement," the paper said.
But the United Firefighters Union released a statement on Thursday saying the data underpinning the reforms is flawed and misleading.
It does not, they say, take into account non-fire related emergencies, such as car crashes, or other rescue jobs that firefighters attend.
Using Productivity Commission data, the UFU says the number of non-fire related emergencies attended by fire services has increased by 31 per cent since 2002-03.
The number of structural fires in that time has dropped by 14 per cent.
But when taken together, the UFU says the core business of the fire service has still increased by 21 per cent since 2002-03.
ACT secretary Greg McConville said firefighters were working vast amounts of overtime, and that the government had failed to recruit and train new officers in sufficient numbers.
"The manner in which the data has been used by the bureaucracy has been dishonest," he said.
"They have purposely identified statistics on only one type of incident (structural fires) which is just one-sixth of the number of rescues firefighters perform, and attempted to use that as a justification for their failure to invest in ACT Fire and Rescue."
A spokeswoman for Emergency Services Minister Simon Corbell said the figure referred to by the union was not key to the rationale for its reform agenda.
She said the reform was aimed to "better match costs to demand and to ensure that good value is delivered".
But she said that by any measure "the emergency demand levels upon the ACTF&R are not onerous and this reflects the success of a range of safety strategies".
She said that incidents involving rescue activity, false alarms, and hazardous conditions increased one per cent per year between 2008-09 to 2013-14.
Rescue-related incidents increased by an annual average of 1.4 per cent over the same time.
"Any future changes to the arrangement of any emergency services will be considered and based upon data, facts to ensure continued high levels of public safety. It has always been the ESA's priority to involve staff and unions in any such proposals," she said.
"Despite the comparatively high safety levels enjoyed by our residents and the comparatively low operational demands upon the Fire & Rescue Service, no plans exist and no proposals are being considered to make cuts to the ACT Fire & Rescue service."
