The city’s fire brigade activates Mortlake Road traffic lights when it is responding to an incident, but has found some motorists do not stop.

This can be dangerous, with trucks trying to exit onto the road in a timely manner and can affect the brigade’s response time.

Warrnambool Fire Brigade senior station officer Dave Ferguson urged people to be aware of the second set of lights on Mortlake Road.

“It continues to be an issue for us and it does slow our response time,” Mr Ferguson said.

He said he believed there was some confusion about the two sets of lights on Mortlake Road.

“It’s probably happening once a week,” he said.

“We would just ask people to help by stopping at these lights.

“People can also help our response times by acting appropriately when they see us coming.

“We just ask that they obey the road rules and move aside.”

Mr Ferguson said people were failing to obey the traffic lights on a more regular basis when the brigade first moved, but it was still occurring.

Despite this ongoing issue, the brigade has a near perfect record for meeting expected response times, according to new data.

The fire brigade was on scene at an incident in less than eight minutes 96 per cent of the time in the period from October to the end of December last year, with an average response time to callouts of seven minutes and 21 seconds.

“We pride ourselves on providing the best service to the community,” Mr Ferguson said.

The brigade’s time backed up its performance in the previous quarter, when it met the eight minute response time 97 per cent of the time.

Minister for Emergency Services James Merlino said across the state, brigades responded to incidents in less than eight minutes 89 per cent of the time.

However, Mr Merlino said he was concerned there was variance in the response times across the state.

“This is the third set of data that showcases a great variance in the service Victorians receive depending on where they live,” Mr Merlino said.