Grenfell tower
- Fire in block of flats on June 14th 2017.
- Deadliest structural fire in Uk sine 1988
- damage to property is a hugh financial consideration - 151 homes were destroyed.
- Local effects on environment has to be considered - several toxicants were found in hihg amounts 6 months after the instance within a 1.2km radius
- Transport disruptions
- 72 deaths, 70 injured and 223 people made homeless that managed to survive.
- As a result there was a major overhaul of clad buildings across the UK to mitigate against future incidents.
Texas 2020
- Massive cold snap caused a large amount of electrical fires.
- The cold snap caused a strain on infrastructure which lead to power outages and more people using candles.
- Resulted in a lot of fires
- Which escalated due to the cold snap
- The water pipes were frozen, so emergency services couldn’t dowse fires.
- Fires couldn’t be dealt with appropriately as the ability to combat the fires wasn’t as good as it normally was due to extreme weather conditions.
Australia 2020
- Bushfires are a frequent occurrence in Australia.
- Megafire – US fire center defines a megafire as a wildfire that burns more than 100,000 acres of land.
- The Australian wildfires ended up destroying 24.3 million hectares (60 million acres)
- When grassland becomes very dry it is easily ignirable even by a small spark which caused the megafire.
How many approximate deaths occur a year due to fire related instances?
400
Consequences of fires
- Huge direct costs from damages (property damage)
- Indirect financial losses can be much greater (up to tenfold).
- Loss of trade, unemployment, tax revenues etc.
- Secondary effects of a fire
- Economic estimates are that for an advanced western economy the total cost of fires (& explosions) is about 1% of the gross domestic product
Figures for malicous fires
The UK home office estimates that 15-20% of dwelling fires and 30-40% of other structure fires have a malicious or suspected malicious cause.
Who was responsible for the fire service and fire statistics before 2000?
The home office
History of responsiblity for fire services and stats
- After 2000, responsibilities for these changed to the Department for transport, local government and the regions (DTLR).
- In 2002, this changed again to the office of the deputy prime minister (OPDM).
- After the infamous “John Prescott affair”, the OPDM was abolished in 2006 and the majority of its responsibilities were migrated to the department for communities and local government (DCLG). This included the fire and rescue service.
- Finally, in January 2016 responsibility for fire and rescue policy in England reverted back to the home office.
Care needs to be taken when looking at statistics.
The way fires are measued is subjective
What data is included in reportable fires?
- Time and date of call.
- Brigade or other geographical data.
- Type of building or vehicle involved.
- Most probable motive (could be intentional or accidental). - Decided by first responder and fire brigade
- Cause of fire (electrical, arson etc.).
- Source of ignition (cigarette, cooker, chip pan fire).
- Materials combusted (furniture, etc.).
- Fire spread (how a fire spread past the point of origin).
- Nature of the victims (age, sex) of fire casualties.
- Rescue method and method of extinction.
- Automatic smoke detector capability.
What does fire stats help us monitor?
- Fire statistics help us to monitor the number of, and the characteristics of fires attended by UK fire brigades. It also allows for consideration of the causes and effects of fires so that future action can be taken to reduce the human (and financial) costs of fires.
- It also helps promote awareness and educatin in public.
- The overal goal is to reduce the incidence of fire and related deaths
IRS
- Incident report system
- Introduced in 2008
- Prior to this everything was done on paper.
- Introduced as a national project part of the fire and resuce service improvement programme
What did the IRS help with?
- Enables data on all incidents attended by the UK Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) to be collected electronically and verified at source, improving on the timeliness, accuracy and efficiency of paper-based collection.
- Information on all incidents attended is collected in the same way, using the same core set of questions.
- Leads to a better understanding of how the services operate so we can deploy resources effectively
- Introduces a standardised system across England.
- Used every year since 2009
Trends in total primary fires, total false alarms and non fire incidents
- There has been a decrease since the 2000s
- Since 2017, trends have been fairly flat.
- Automated fire alarm systems reduce reporting.
- Total number of fires had a more drastic decrease
Why is there sometimes an increase in fires?
The cost of living crisis means people are put in difficult financiel situations. As a result they may set fires to claim insurance.
Why are there proportionally more non fire related incidents since 2006?
- There are fewer fires and false alarms meaning the non fire related incidents are taking up a bigger percentage.
- Overall the rate has decreased.
- The reporting system makes it seem like there is more non fire instances occuring but that isn’t the case.
Where do the majority of fire related deaths occur?
Dwellings (houses, flats, etc)
What type of home doesn’t have a clear category in fire data?
Motor homes
What is the trend for number of fatalities?
They are decreasing and appears to be plateauing however there isn’t enough data to support this.
Why are their abnormalities for 2017 data
- 2017 was an anomaly due to Grenfell, which has been accounted for but due to its severity has been given an individual data set as well as being added to the cumulative figure.
- This is help us appreciate the normal observed trend.
Why is there a decrease in non fatal casualties after 1996 despite it increasing before this?
- Smoke alarms were made mandatory, which meant that smoke alarm ownership had a huge growth spurt, and almost perfectly intersects with the reduction of casualties we observe.
- When legislation comes into place it takes a while to implement them leading to a lag effect of the acceptance of the legislation
Largest ignition for accidental dwelling fires.
2021
Cooking appliances were the largest ignition category for accidental dwelling fires, accounting for 46 per cent of these fires and 35 per cent of non-fatal casualties but only accounted for 10 per cent of the fire-related fatalities
Accidental dwelling fires
- The primary reason for fire in homes is the misuse of equipment
- The data can’t show the extent of the damages caused
- The incident occurrence / the reason of the fire can have an effect on the extent of the damage
- Common occurrence but relatively they’re not that deadly
- Smoking materials are far more fatal but less occurrence
Why is the a decrease in chip pan fires?
- Chip pan fires make up 6% of all fires, they used to make 20% of all incidents.
- The reason for this is we have gotten healthier as a nation!
Effect of smokers on the decreasing trend in accidental dwelling fires
- There has been a reduction of smokers from 2001 to 2015.
- Fewer people are smoking which means fewer opportunities for ignition.
- UK regs have made smoking itself less likely to cause a fire. Cigarettes now have a less porous portion of the paper that acts as a break in the cigarette. It won’t go through and burn past it unless you actively are drawing the air through it.
- More people have begun vaping which removes fuel package.
