Thank you for your request under the Environmental Information Regulations.
We can confirm that Essex County Fire & Rescue Service does hold the information you have requested.
Some of the information is not available to you as it would be classed as personal data.
Please see below for the exception applied.
Please see below the answer to your request.
Questions and final response:
Question 1 - Can I please request, in the form of a spreadsheet such as Excel or CSV file, information on flooding incidents attended by the fire and rescue service.
I would like the information to be in relation to flooding incidents caused only by severe weather (heavy rainfall).
1. I would like the total number of flooding incidents recorded by the fire and rescue service, broken down by month, for the calendar years 2013 to 16 January 2024
2. In a separate tab I would like details of each flooding incident. Please include:
Date of incident
Time of day incident reported.
Incident duration (minutes)
Location (please include longitude and latitude and local authority if available)
Total number of buildings affected.
Total number of dwellings affected.
Total number of firefighters injured, seriously injured, or killed.
Please find attached a spreadsheet with the data that you have requested.
We are unable to say If any buildings were affected by the flooding, we have supplied the property sub type which shows the type of property that was involved in each incident (if any).
Again, with the cause of the flooding, our incident recording system does not hold information as to the origin of the flooding, whether it was burst pipes, inclement weather, heavy rainfall etc.
We have no record of any firefighter injuries or fatalities arising from these flooding incidents.
We have removed the longitude and latitude data from the dataset for the incidents that involved dwellings, this would potentially identify addresses, these are classed as personal data.
We apply EIR Regulation 12(3) & Regulation 13 - Personal data of third parties is exempt if disclosure would breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998.
We believe that providing you with the information would breach the following Data Protection principles:
Data shall be fairly and lawfully processed.
Data shall be processed for limited purposes.
We are applying this exception because:
a) we do not have the consent of the person who is the subject of the information to disclose it to you,
b) disclosure does not meet any of the schedule 2 conditions that would make it “necessary”, and
c) disclosure of the information to you would not be connected to the purpose for which we have collected and are holding the information.
We further believe that the release of the requested information would cause unwarranted interference to the rights and freedoms and legitimate interests of the data subject(s).
Such a disclosure would in our view constitute a breach of Article 8 in the Human Rights Act (the right to privacy and family life).
In such circumstances this is an absolute exception. In accordance with the Regulations, this letter acts as a refusal notice.
We hope this information is useful to you.
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Incident and other data is published on our transparency site. Incident Data (essexfire.gov.uk) .
Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this request will be published on our website http://transparency.essex-fire.gov.uk/.
All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.
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Thank you for your interest in Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, we hope this satisfies your request.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to apply for an internal review.
Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of your original email and should be sent to informationgovernance@essex-fire.gov.uk or sent to our postal address: Internal Review, System & Data Information Governance Team, Kelvedon Park, Rivenhall, Witham, Essex CM8 3HB.
Please ensure you quote the above reference number in all future communications