Data are collected nationally on incidents attended by the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), such as fires and road traffic collisions; and operational information on the FRS including: recruitment and retention, health and safety, fire prevention activity such as on Community Fire Safety and Fire Safety Audits of premises.
Publications
This Statistical Bulletin presents data on fires in Wales.
Data on response times to incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Service in England.
Data on incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Service in Great Britain.
Data on incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Service in the UK.
Data on fires attended by UK Fire and Rescue Service within the UK.
Presents data on fires attended in Wales
This Statistical Bulletin presents data on fire incidents in Wales
Statistics relating to the operational issues affecting fire and rescue services in England. It includes information on personnel, equality and diversity, health and safety, and operational activities.
This Statistical Release contains statistics relating to operational issues affecting Fire and Rescue Services in Wales.
This Statistical Release presents an assessment of the Welsh fire and rescue services' performance.
Summary statistics on Fire and Rescue Service personnel and Non domestic fire safety.
Presents findings from the first fire module of questions in the Survey of English Housing.
Statistics on grassland fire incident include data for Wales.
This Statistical Bulletin contains statistics on operational information about retained duty staff.
Overview
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) works closely with the Fire and Rescue Service in order to coordinate the collection of consistent data on the occurrence of fires and other rescue incidents, and across the range of Fire and Rescue Service activities. Fire and Rescue Statistics publications can be browsed from the DCLG website.
The data support resource allocation by the Fire and Rescue Services, using tools and approaches such as Fire Service Emergency Cover modelling and Integrated Risk Management Planning.
There is an active Fire and Rescue Statistics User Group. Details of its work, meetings and links to information can be found on the Fire and Rescue Statistics User group website.
Technical Data
Fire and Rescue Service Incident Statistics
Up to March 2009:
Fire and Rescue Service staff completed a detailed Fire Data Report (FDR1 form) for all “Primary” fires (see glossary for definition).
Fire and Rescue Services also made monthly aggregate returns of the number of “Secondary” fires, Chimney Fires, False Alarms attended, and annual returns on numbers of Special Service Incidents.
For Primary fires, data returns were made exclusively by paper forms prior to 1998, with 19 of the 58 UK’s Fire and Rescue Services switching to electronic data supply by the beginning of 2005. This equated to over 40% of all incidents, for which full incident details are in DCLG’s database. For the remainder, key variables were entered for all incidents.
Further, full incident details were entered for all incidents involving any casualty or fatality. For those paper form incidents with no fatality or injury, full incident details were keyed in for one in five forms. Consequently some non-headline estimates, e.g. total rescues, published in Fire Statistics UK may differ from records held by Fire and Rescue Services.
From April 2009:
The new Incident Recording System (IRS) collects detailed records of all incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Services, and all records are transmitted to DCLG in full.
Details of all the data collected under the Fire and Rescue Incident Recording System is available in the publication.
Quality Assurance is carried out by each Fire and Rescue Service. Additionally, DCLG carries out a programme of quality assurance which is structured in four strands:
1. number of incidents and their record status
2. devising key outputs by fire and rescue service authority (FRA) and comparing trends across FRAs
3. examining the spread of values in key variables and comparing across FRAs
4. checking notable incidents for example, all with Fatalities, those marked as “with conditions” or “with queries”.
Further technical information can be found within the relevant publication, typically in annexes (see publications tab).
Glossary
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Building fires
Statistics on building fires routinely exclude buildings that are derelict or under demolition. These are classed within secondary fires.
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Cause of fire
The defect, act or omission leading to ignition of the fire.
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Chimney fire
These are reportable fires in occupied buildings, where: i) the fire was confined within the chimney structure, ii) that did not involve casualties or rescues, iii) attended by four or fewer appliances.
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Dwelling fires
Statistics on dwelling fires routinely include buildings occupied by households, but exclude hotels, hostels and residential institutions. For data since 1994, they include non-permanent structures used solely as a dwelling, such as caravans and houseboats. If not used as permanent dwellings, these are shown as the relevant vehicle or outdoor location.
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False Alarm
An event in which the fire and rescue service believes they are called to a reportable fire and then find there is no such incident. False alarms are categorised as: Malicious, where the call was made with the intention of getting the fire and rescue service to attend a non-existent fire-related event. This includes ‘deliberate’ and ‘suspected malicious’ intentions. Good Intent, where the call was made in good faith in the belief that the fire and rescue service really would attend a fire; and Due to Apparatus, where the call was initiated by fire alarm and firefighting equipment operating (including accidental initiation of alarm apparatus).
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Fatal Casualty
A person whose death is attributed to a fire (as reported on the death certificate) is counted as a fatality even if death occurred weeks or months later.
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Fire control staff
Uniformed personnel who are employed to work in fire and rescue service control centres to answer emergency calls and deal with mobilising, communications, and related activities, regardless of rank.
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Fire-related (of casualties)
The Incident Recording System asks whether each fatality and non-fatal casualty was i) fire-related, ii) not fire-related, or iii) unknown whether fire-related. In order to maintain consistency with data prior to the Incident Recording System, National statistics are calculated as follows: A) Fire fatalities include each fatality at fire incidents that was recorded as ‘fire-related’ and ‘unknown whether fire-realted’. B) Fire non-fatal casualties count all non-fatal casualties at fire incidents, since the number of non-fatal casualties that would not have happened had there not been a fire should be negligible.
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Heat or smoke damage only
These are reportable ‘fires’ where there is no fire damage. The damage reported may be due to any combination of heat, smoke and other which will include any water damage.
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Late fire call
A fire which was known to be extinguished when the Fire and Rescue Service learned that there had been a fire.
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Motive
Whether the probable cause of the fire was accidental or deliberate in the opinion of the firefighters attending. Where there is uncertainty, ‘unknown’ may be recorded. For analysis purposes, such cases are combined with fires recorded as accidental.
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Non-fatal casualty
Non-fatal casualties consist of persons requiring medical treatment beyond first aid given at the scene of the fire, and those sent to hospital or advised to see a doctor for a check-up or observation (whether or not they actually do). People sent to hospital or advised to see a doctor as a precaution while having no obvious injury, are recorded as ’precautionary check-ups’.
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Non-uniformed staff
Generally support/administrative staff employed by a Fire and Rescue Authority (FRA).
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Primary fires
These are reported fires (as listed below) or any fires involving casualties, rescues, or fires attended by five or more appliances. An appliance is counted if either the appliance, equipment from it or personnel riding on it, were used to fight the fire. Primary fire locations include: buildings; caravans and trailers; vehicles and other methods of transport (not derelict); outdoor storage, plant and machinery; agricultural and forestry premises and property; and other outdoor structures including post boxes, tunnels and bridges.
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Reportable fire
A reportable fire is an event of uncontrolled burning involving flames, heat or smoke and which the fire and rescue service attended.
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Retained duty system (RDS) firefighter
A person who contracts to be available for agreed periods of time for fire-fighting purposes, but who could have an alternative full-time employment.
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Secondary fires
These are reportable fires that were not in primary fire locations (see primary fires) and were not chimney fires in buildings. The majority are small outdoor fires. Prior to implementation of the Incident Recording System (until March 2009), these were categorised as: i) Derelict building/under demolition, ii) Grassland etc , iii) Intentional straw/stubble burning, iv) Outdoor structure, v) Refuse/refuse container, vi) Derelict vehicle
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Source of ignition
The source of the flame, spark or heat that started the fire.
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Special Service Incident
Incident attended by Fire and Rescue Services other than fires. Incident attended by Fire and Rescue Services that are not fires e.g. Road Traffic Collision and water removal.
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Spread of fire
The extent to which fire damage (as opposed to heat, smoke or other damage) spread, for example, beyond the room of origin.
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Wholetime firefighter
A person employed full-time as a firefighter regardless of their rank.
Contact Details
For statistical enquiries about this topic, please contact:
Communities and Local Government
Email: fireresearchandstats@communities.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 30 3444 0000
Communities and Local Government Eland House Bressenden Place London SW1E 5DU
