Thank you for your request under the Environmental Information Regulations.
We can confirm that Essex County Fire & Rescue Service does hold part of the information you have requested.
Please see below the answer to your request.
Questions and final response:
Question 1 - Warehouse fires: We are interested in the number of fire incidents in warehouses.
a. How many fires in warehouses have you attended in the last three calendar years (2024 - to date, 2023, 2022, 2021)? b. Per year, please breakdown the above by the following:
c. Extent of damage
d. Cause of fire.
For questions 1 – 5, please see attached PDF.
Question 2 - Fires in Schools: I am seeking to understand how many schools have been impacted by fires and whether sprinklers were present.
1. How many fires at schools have you attended in the last five full years (2023 to 2019 or nearest period, if not available). For questions 1 – 5, please see attached PDF.
Question 3 - If possible, please provide a breakdown per year of: a. of the school fires you attended in this period, how many had sprinklers fitted?
For questions 1 – 5, please see attached PDF.
Question 4 - Please provide a breakdown of the causes of fire by year.
For questions 1 – 5, please see attached PDF.
Question 5 - For each year, please also provide a breakdown of the type of school (e.g. primary, secondary), any injuries or deaths, the extent of damage to school, age of school?
For questions 1 – 5, please see attached PDF.
Question 6 - how many of the schools at the time the fire broke out had received a low, medium or high fire risk assessment (or alternative classification if used), how many school fire risk assessments have you carried out in the last five full years (2023 to 2019 or nearest period, if not available) and if possible, please provide a breakdown of the outcomes e.g. low, medium, high risk?
Essex County Fire & Rescue Service (ECFRS) do not perform Fire Risk Assessments (FRA), the responsibility for FRA’s falls under the Responsible person at the individual premise.
Therefore, we are unable to provide any information in response to this question.
Question 7 - I would be very grateful if you could provide figures relating to fires caused by disposable e-cigarettes and vapes. I appreciate this may not be a category you record. It would be great if you could perform a free text search on "vape" and "e-cigarette" together with any other terms you think relevant.
Please could you provide the information, split by the years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 (to date)
Please see attached PDF.
We hope this information is useful to you.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
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.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
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.