Fire chief welcomes a fall in deliberate blazes
Deliberate fires in South Lanarkshire are at their lowest level for five years.
New figures revealed by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service revealed that there were a total of 825 deliberate fires across the region in 2018-19.
Most of these, 696, were classed as secondary fires including bin and grass fires. The reduction comes despite the “unprecedented increase in activity” in the area during one of the hottest and driest summers on record.
Accidental house fires also fell from 244 to 229 last year, the second-lowest recorded in the last five years.
Firefighters carried out over 3469 home safety visits with 1270 targeting residents thought to be most vulnerable to harm.
Alan Fairbairn is the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s local senior officer (LSO) for the area and said that outstanding partnership working was at the heart of the continued downward trends.
He said: “We are delighted that we are seeing such positive results in the area – much of this is absolutely down to how closely we are working with our partners and emergency service colleagues in the area.
“As part of a community safety hub, we meet once a week to swap intelligence, develop strategies and make sure that we are working together in the most effective ways to identify risks and prevent harm in our communities.
“I would not only like to thank our own staff for these positive outcomes, but all of our partners too.”
LSO Fairbairn added: “Last summer was very dry and warm, and as a result July saw a somewhat unprecedented increase in activity.
“However, we quickly acted on the intelligence gathered, identified key areas which we needed to focus on alongside our partners and the community, and as a result we saw the number of secondary deliberate fires almost halved over the following months.
“The message here is clear – we take a zero-tolerance approach to deliberate fire setting which can divert our resources from real emergencies and have a devastating impact on our communities.
“We are committed to working with schools and the local authority to highlight the potential consequences of this activity and we will continue to work with our partners in Police Scotland to identify those responsible.”
The figures were released following a meeting of the Safer South Lanarkshire Board.
“Road traffic collisions fell to the second lowest level in the last five years and the number of fire and non-fire casualties were also down.
However, the number of false alarms to the fire service rose to