Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Tables of statistics relating to fires attended by National and Local Authority Fire Services in the United Kingdom have been compiled annually since 1946. Summary tables have been published in the Annual Reports of the Joint Fire Research Organization. With the agreement of the Home Office, the Scottish Home Department and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Northern Ireland the tables for 1958 contained in this volume are generally available to interested persons. By arrangement with the Home Office, the Scottish Home Department the Ministry of Home Affairs, Northern Ireland and Local Authorities, a report is received on every fire attended by a Local Authority Fire Brigade in the United Kingdom. The tables are compiled from these reports. They do not give information on all the fires that occur, but they give an accurate assessment of all the fires to which Fire Brigades are called. For this statistical analysis a one-in-four sample of the reports received in 1958 has been used. Details of the method of selecting the sample, and information on the possible sampling errors involved, are given in the Appendix. The tables are divided into four sections. The first section provides a summary of the United Kingdom figures for the years 1954 - 1958. More detailed statistical information for 1958 is given in sections II, III, and IV for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland respectively. The monthly distributions of fire incidents are given diagrammatically in Figures 1 and 2. Figure 3 indicates the changes in annual incidence of fire in various indoor hazards for the period 1949-1958. Where percentages are given these have been rounded up to the nearest tenth so that the sums of the constituents are not always equal to 100.