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November 26, 2020

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Fire statistics

False alarms account for 42% of FRS incidents in 2020

Fire and rescue incident statistics for England, have been released by the Home Office for the year ending June 2020, containing statistics about incidents attended by the services (FRS).

fire alarmIn the year ending June 2020 FRSs attended 231,510 fire false alarms, a 1% increase with the previous year (229,961), and a 7% increase compared with five years ago (215,857), though a 19% decrease compared with 10 years ago (285,368).

Key results

  • FRSs attended 549,913 incidents in the year ending June 2020. This was a 4% decrease compared with the previous year (573,776). Of these incidents, there were 156,128 fires. This was a 15% decrease compared with the previous year (182,661) with falls in all types of fires but particularly driven by a 20% fall in secondary fires now that the hot, dry 2018 summer is in the comparator year;
  • There were 231 fire-related fatalities in the year ending June 2020 compared with 271 in the previous year;
  • Weekly figures during the National COVID-19 Lockdown generally show that incident figures were no higher or lower than typically seen in 2015 to 2019. The only exception to this is Road Traffic Collisions which saw fewer incidents than our analysis would describe as typical;
  • Of all incidents attended by FRSs, fires accounted for 28%, fire false alarms 42% and non-fire incidents 30%. This compares with fires accounting for 35%, fire false alarms 42% and non-fire incidents 23% ten years ago;
  • FRSs attended 231,510 fire false alarms.

The release also includes data on weekly incident numbers under the lockdown compared against a baseline of the previous five years (2015 to 2019).

It is noted that, generally, the results show that incident figures were not higher or lower than typically seen in 2015 to 2019 and some that could be explained by the weather. The only exception to this is Road Traffic Collisions which saw fewer incidents than our analysis would describe as typical.

Read the full statistics on the gov.uk website. 

This news story was originally published on IFSEC Global.

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