If your home or business catches alight in a major city in Queensland, the fire brigade is likely to get there a little slower than in other states.
A new report released by the Productivity Commission shows it took on average 11.7 minutes in 2016-17, including call-taking time, to get a truck to a city structure fire in the Sunshine State.
In Victoria, the firies took just 9.2 minutes to get to the scene, while NSW crews took 9.5 minutes.
It took 11.4 minutes for Western Australian firefighters and 11.2 in South Australia.
However Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Katarina Carroll has defended her organisation's response times, saying it is additionally challenged by the state's size and scattered population.
"Queensland is a very, very widespread state with many major cities," she told AAP.
"The times are worked out as an average across the state, so that would not just be comparing Melbourne with Brisbane.
"You've got to be very, very careful of how you compare the data."
QFES response times to structure fires remained steady over the past five years and continued to better the standard of 14 minutes, a spokesman said.
"Queensland has a vast geographic area and response times in inner and outer regional centres are well ahead of most other states," he said.
When it came to inner-regional areas, Queensland took 14.2 minutes whereas Western Australia took 21.3 and Victoria took 19 minutes to be on the scene.
Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford said while he was satisfied with the performance of emergency crews, response times would continue to be monitored for improvement.
"We'll continue to build stations and put in upgrades of stations, appliances and staff as to where we need to have them," he said.
