Scourge of Fire-setting

Today saw the launch of a major campaign to highlight the scourge of fire-setting in Strathclyde.

Strathclyde Fire & Rescue is currently experiencing a spate of deliberate fires involving refuse, rubbish bins and skips, grassland and woodland, and derelict buildings and vehicles.

Since the start of the financial year, 1st April, fire crews have attended 6,400 secondary fires - almost half of last year's 13,255 total. Last weekend alone, firefighters had to deal with 254 deliberate fires.

The prospect of a long, hot summer making vegetation more vulnerable to fire adds to concerns about the dangers that deliberately-set fires pose to people and property. Fire Crews also run the risk of being attacked when they turn up to extinguish deliberate fires.

Strathclyde Fire & Rescue's Deliberate Fire-Setting Campaign, launched today at Motherwell Community Fire Station, involves close partnership working with other agencies. Reflecting this, the launch featured presentations from Robert Scott, SFR's Area Commander for North Lanarkshire, Superintendent Alick Irvine of Strathclyde Police, Martin Dickson, Local Regeneration Manager with North Lanarkshire Council, and Kate Jackson of Crimestoppers Scotland.

The launch was held in North Lanarkshire which has some of the highest rates of fire-setting in the whole of Strathclyde. In the last financial year, the Strathclyde community fire station attending the highest number of deliberate fires was Coatbridge (657). Other extremely active North Lanarkshire community fire stations included Motherwell (587), Bellshill (356) and Cumbernauld (316).

Elsewhere in Strathclyde, community fire stations with high call-out rates involving deliberate fires last year included Hamilton (612) and East Kilbride (255) in South Lanarkshire, Pollok in South Glasgow (483), Springburn (437) and Easterhouse (403) in North Glasgow,  Kilwinning (287) and Dreghorn (265) in SFR's North & South Ayrshire Area, Greenock (358), Paisley (414), Kilmarnock (429), Clydebank (418) and Ayr (305).

These figures follow on from the publication last November of the Scottish Community Fire Safety Study "Scotland Together" . This showed that people in Scotland were much more likely to die or be injured in house fires or have their property damaged in fires. (The study was produced almost entirely by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue personnel after Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing MSP had asked Chief Officer Brian Sweeney to examine how fire deaths could be reduced.)

Area Commander Robert Scott said: "There is a mistaken belief that deliberate fire setting is only a nuisance. This couldn't be further from the truth. Each deliberate fire ties up at least one appliance that may be needed at a house fire, for instance, or a serious road traffic collision. Each blue light journey poses a potential risk to fire crews and other road users.

"So far this financial year there have been five fire deaths and 91 fire casualties. Compare that to last year's 31 deaths and 406 casualties and it is plain to see that our fire crews are needed to tackle emergencies and carry out prevention work such as Home Fire Safety Visits.

"Deliberate fires have a major financial cost for our service and also an environmental one for communities because of the fumes and CO2 released into the atmosphere."

Area Commander Scott added: "I would call on communities throughout Strathclyde to help us and our partners to drive down fire-setting. Children and young people, who are responsible for most deliberate fires, should be warned about the dangers they pose to themselves and others. Anyone who has information about such incidents should contact the Police or Crimestoppers Scotland on 0800 555 111."

* Weblink to "Scotland Together" pdf document

Today's Launch features:

• North Lanarkshire school pupils on a FireReach course
• CCTV footage of fire-setting
• Scenes from an award-winning play about fire danger being performed in schools.

Measures to tackle Fire-Setting

Prevention:

• Youth Engagement and Engagement activities including FireReach and Fire Crew visits to Schools. Carried out in partnership with Local Authorities, Police and other agencies
• Fire Crews distribute Scotland Crimestopper cards to fire-setting blackspots, stressing that fire-setting is an offence
• Local Authority refuse uplift partnerships with SFR, and Fire Crews alerting businesses to hazards of leaving waste lying around
• Radio advertising campaign and Media publicity

Enforcement:

• Fire Crews report all deliberate fires to Police
• Close working with Public Space CCTV to focus on fire-setting
• Anti-Social Behaviour legislation - SFR working closely with Police and Local Authorities
• Fire Appliance CCTV to provide footage of any offences - particular attacks on Crews - for passing to Police