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 1959 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, reports are received on all fires (other than chimney fires confined to chimneys) 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 a useful assessment of all the fires to which Fire Brigades are called. For this statistical analysis, a one-in-four sample has been used for all reports relating to fires in 1959, other than those of fires confined to grassland, heathland, and railway embankments, for which, on account of their exceptional number in 1959 and substantial homogeneity, a one-in-ten sample was 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 fires for the years 1955-1959. More detailed statistical information for 1959 is given in sections II, III and IV for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. 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. 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 1949-1959. The total number of fires attended by Fire Brigades in the United Kingdom, excluding chimney fires confined to chimneys, increased from 101 912 in 1958 to 237 814 in 1959. In general, the number of fires in each hazard was greater in 1959 than in 1958 though there were several exceptions and the number in Navy, Army, Air Force and Fire Service establishments decreased by about a quarter. The greatest increase occurred in grassland, heathland and railway embankments, where it was more than five fold. In previous years, the numbers of fires in buildings and the numbers in hazards other than buildings have generally been of the same order, but in 1959, the numbers in buildings were only one quarter of the total. Similarly, the numbers of fires due to most of the individual causes, were generally greater in 1959 than in 1958 but there were several exceptions and some downward trends apparent in previous years continued in 1959. Among these were fires ignited by "fire in grate", those attributed to gas heaters and those associated with electric refrigerators.