Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Reports on form K.433 of fires attended by the Fire Brigades in the United Kingdom during 1951 have been analysed and the following ten statistical tables have been prepared for England and Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland the tables are set out in Appendices I, II and III respectively. 1. Method of calling Fire Brigades to fires. 2. Fires classified according to hazard in which fire started. 3. Supposed cause of fires. 4A. Supposed cause of fires in buildings in relation to hazard in which fire started. 4B. Supposed cause of fires other than those in buildings in relation to hazard in which fire started. 5. Material first ignited in fires. 6. Method of extinction of fires. 7. Behaviour of sprinkler systems at fires. 8. Attendance of special appliances at fires. 9. Persons rescued or escaped by emergency means from fires. 10. Nature of injuries of casualties in fires. Zero percentages and percentages less than 0.05% are indicated by a dash (-) in the tables. All reports were analysed to prepare Tables 1, 8, 9 and 10. Because of shortage of staff, a random one-in-two sample of reports was analysed for Tables 2, 3, 4A, 4B, 5, 6 and 7; the results of analysis of this sample were multiplied by two to obtain the figures given in the tables (except for Table 7). The method of selecting the sample and the accuracy of the estimated yearly totals and of the percentages of different types of occurrence are discussed in Appendix IV.