Detailed analysis of response times to fires attended by fire and rescue services: England, April 2023 to March 2024

Product Description

This release presents detailed analysis on fire incidents and response times to fires, which occurred in the year ending March 2024 for fire and rescue services (FRSs) in England. This is the first year that the detailed analysis of fires and response times to fires have been included in the same statistical release, so as to provide more timely statistics. In previous years, detailed analysis of fires and detailed analysis of response times were published as separate individual statistical releases.

The statistics on fire incidents, victims of fires and response times to fires are sourced from the Home Office’s online Incident Recording System (IRS). The statistics on smoke alarms are sourced from the English Housing Survey (EHS).

As the IRS is a continually updated database, the statistics published in this release may not match those held locally by FRSs and revisions may occur in the future. This may be particularly relevant for fire-related fatalities, where a coroner’s report could lead to revisions in the data some time after the incident. It should also be noted that the numbers of fire-related fatalities are prone to year-on-year fluctuations, due to relatively low numbers. The year ending March 2018 had a particularly high number of fire-related fatalities due to the Grenfell Tower fire, though this year is not one of the comparator years in this release. On 4th September 2024, the final report of the inquiry was published. The findings of this report may affect future statistics that include the Grenfell Tower fire.

The year ending March 2023 contained the hot dry summer of 2022, this is the 1-year comparator and influences many of the year-on-year decreases identified in this report.