Essex County Fire & Rescue Service

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FOI / 3732 / 2018 - Phone chargers

Initial Request:

As a local city councillor in Chelmsford I wonder if you could give me some information on the number of house fires caused through phone charges.

Is it the cheaper fake ones or is it any charger.

I have had an experience of this happening in my ward to a young family whose phone charger left for 24 hours on the floor, burnt through the floor boards and caused extensive damage.

The family had to be rehoused which took just over 6 months.

I would like to make more residents aware and maybe the city council can do an article in the community newspaper.

I would appreciate any facts and figures that would be helpful to the public. I understand that this is one of the fire brigade biggest "call out" in terms of incidents.

Final Response:

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please find our response to your request below.

On our search from our Incident Recording System we do not have a reporting field specifically for chargers / mobile phone chargers. The only way we can report on this is if it has been entered in the free text area.

On that basis, since 2009 until the present day, we are able to report only one house fire in Essex due to a mobile phone charger, but we are unable to confirm if this is due to branded or unbranded ones.

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 addressed to: Internal Review, Performance & Data Team, Kelvedon Park, Rivenhall, Witham, Essex CM8 3HB

Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this request will be published on the Essex County Fire & Rescue Service website. The website address is http://www.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.