The Home Office has released statistics that provide a new analysis of automatic fire alarms by confirmed type.
The figures include a count of the number of incidents classified as Automatic Fire Alarms at the time of call, by Fire and Rescue Service, by confirmed incident type at scene attendance, and by Financial Year, covering 2016/17 to 2021/22.
Automatic Fire Alarms incidents
The work shows that in the year 2021/22, there were nearly 130,000 incidents classified as Automatic Fire Alarms at the time of call by Fire and Rescue Services in England, a decrease of over 6.5% on the previous year.
Of these 130,000 incidents, the overwhelming majority (97.5%) were recorded as being false alarms, with just 2.1% firing. These percentages remain in line with the statistics reported for the previous five years, going back to 2016/17.
false alarms concerns
The figures show that false alarms were still predominantly occurring due to the fire alarm apparatus, with 90% attributed to this cause, and just 1,977 (or 2%) happening due to malicious intent.
Dwellings were the number one cause of incidents classified as fires, accounting for 1,855 of the total 2,665.