Accredited official statistics
Fire statistics monitor: April to September 2009
Statistics on fires, casualties, false alarms and non-fire incidents attended by fire and rescue services in the UK.
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The latest national statistics on fires, casualties and false alarms attended by the fire and rescue services in the United Kingdom, produced by Communities and Local Government, were released on Friday 14 May 2010 under the auspices of the UK Statistics Authority.
Statistics in this release comprise:
- numbers of fatalities in England for the period April to September 2009
- revised data on all measures for UK and England for 2008 to 2009
Fatalities (April to September 2009)
- between April and September 2009 there were 162 fatalities, 43 more than in the same 6 months of 2008
- most of the overall increase of 43 fatalities was in accidental dwelling fires, in which there were 31 more fatalities in April to September 2009 (101 compared to 70 in April to September 2008)
- in 2008 to 2009 there were 322 fire fatalities, 36 fewer than in 2007 to 2008
Fire incidents and non-fatal casualties (revised 2008 to 2009 data)
- the UK fire and rescue services attended 722,000 fire and false alarm incidents in 2008 to 2009. a 10% decrease on 2007 to 2008; in England, 562,000 incidents were attended (also a 10% decrease)
- total fires fell by 15% to 326,000 for the UK and by 15% in England (to 249,000)
- primary fires in the UK fell by 9% to 128,000; within this, dwelling fires fell by 6% to 49,000 and fires in other buildings (including workplaces and areas where people gather) were down by 10% to 27,000; road vehicle fires fell by 12% to 44,000
- primary fires in England fell by 9% to 104,000; within this, dwelling fires fell by 7% to 39,000 and fires in other buildings were down by 10% to 22,000; road vehicle fires fell by 12% to 36,000
- UK secondary fires fell by 20% to 185,000, as with England, where they also fell by 21% to 137,000
- attendances to UK false alarms decreased by 5% to 397,000; within this there was a 19% fall (to 23,000) in malicious false alarms and a 2% fall (to 264,000) in false alarms due to apparatus
- in England, attendances at false alarms decreased by 6% to 313,000; within this there was a 20% fall (to 17,000) in malicious false alarms and a 4% fall (to 207,000) in false alarms due to apparatus
- in 2008 to 2009, the number of non-fatal casualties from fires in the UK fell by 9% to 12,000 from 13,100 in 2007 to 2008; in England there were 9,200 non fatal casualties in 2008 to 2009, down 11% compared to 2007 to 2008