Today sees the launch of a major campaign to highlight the scourge of fire-setting in Strathclyde.

Strathclyde Fire & Rescue is currently experiencing a spate of fires involving refuse, rubbish bins and skips, grassland and woodland, and derelict buildings and vehicles. Virtually all of these fires are started deliberately. Since the start of the financial year, 1st April, fire crews have attended 6,400 secondary fires - almost half of last year's 13,255 total. In the last weekend alone, firefighters had to deal with 254 deliberate fires.  

The prospect of a long, hot summer making vegetation more vulnerable to fire adds to concerns about the dangers that deliberately-set fires pose to people and property. Fire Crews also run the risk of being attacked when they turn up to extinguish deliberate fires.

Strathclyde Fire & Rescue's Deliberate Fire-Setting Campaign, launched today at Motherwell, involves close partnership working with other agencies. Reflecting this, the launch features presentations from: Robert Scott, SFR's Area Commander for North Lanarkshire, Superintendent Alick Irvine of Strathclyde Police, Martin Dickson, Local Regeneration Manager with North Lanarkshire Council, and Kate Jackson of Crimestoppers Scotland.  

The launch is being held in North Lanarkshire which has some of the highest rates of fire-setting in the whole of Strathclyde. In the last financial year, the Strathclyde community fire station attending the highest number of deliberate fires was Coatbridge (657). Other extremely active North Lanarkshire community fire stations included Motherwell (587), Bellshill (356) and Cumbernauld (316).  Elsewhere in Strathclyde, community fire stations with high call-out rates last year included Hamilton (612) and East Kilbride (255) in South Lanarkshire, Pollok in South Glasgow (483), Springburn (437) and Easterhouse (403) in North Glasgow, Kilwinning (287) and Dreghorn (265) in SFR's North & South Ayrshire Area, Greenock (358), Paisley (414), Kilmarnock (429), Clydebank (418) and Ayr (305).  

These figures follow on from the publication last November of the Scottish Community Fire Safety Study "Scotland Together". This showed that people in Scotland were much more likely to die or be injured in house fires or have their property damaged in fires. (The study was produced almost entirely by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue personnel after Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing MSP had asked Chief Officer Brian Sweeney to examine how fire deaths could be reduced.)  

Area Commander Robert Scott said: "There is a mistaken belief that deliberate fire setting is only a nuisance. This couldn't be further from the truth. Each deliberate fire ties up at least one appliance that may be needed at a house fire, for instance, or a serious road traffic collision. Each blue light journey poses a potential risk to fire crews and other road users.  

• 9th September 2010
  Largest Ever Fire Service Exercise
• 3rd September 2010
  Warwickshire Welcome’s New Assistant Chief Fire Officer
• 31st August 2010
  300,000 homes in London without smoke alarms
• 26th August 2010
  Millions Wasted on Fire Service Revamp
• 24th August 2010
  Hereford and Worcester FRS Tackle Serious Blaze