Firefighters facing highest call-out figures in four years

Friday 26 June 2015

Firefighters were called out to a lot more emergencies last year – their busiest for four years and they had to rescue a lot more people who’d got themselves stuck in lifts.

They put out 268 fires - 24 more than in 2013 and over half of house fires were in homes that didn’t have a working smoke alarm – but it was the number of fires in public and commercial premises that’s their biggest concern – the most they’ve had to deal with in the last decade.

Chief Fire Officer Mark James said: “The Fire & Rescue Service is passionate about reducing the number of fires and other emergencies in Jersey. Despite the huge effort the Service undertakes to prevent fires and other emergencies there has been a continued upward trend in incidents with 2014 being our busiest year since 2010. It is particularly worrying that there was 31% increase in fires in public and commercial premises.

“We will continue to do everything we can promote fire safety and protect people from harm which will be a challenge in the coming years with reduced budgets and less Firefighters. We will have to be innovative and look at new ways of working to try to carry on delivering the same level of service with fewer resources."

They rescued 11 people from fires last year - slightly fewer than in 2013 but had to rescue a lot more in non-fire related incidents. 72 out of the 141 people they rescued were stuck in lifts and were found distressed and in need of medical help.

After an exceptionally busy year in 2013, the number of water and sea rescues was back to normal last year - they were called out 22 times, rescuing 16 people from the sea and they helped with ten cliff rescues.

The Service say they are still having to deal with a lot of false alarms and that's still putting a strain on them - there were 547 last year, forty more than the year before - 140 of them were genuine public false alarms but seven of their call outs were because of malicious false alarms.