Fire deaths drop to 10-year low

The total number of fires reported rose despite deaths falling

The number of people killed in fires has fallen to the lowest total in a decade, figures have revealed.

Statistics showed 52 people died in fires in Scotland in 2006 - a drop from 65 the previous year.

The figure represents a 41% drop in fire deaths in 1997, when 88 people were killed.

However, Scotland still has the second highest fire death rate in the UK per head of population, with only Northern Ireland having more.

The Scottish Government figures also showed a rise in the total number of fires to 50,520 - 8% higher than the 46,971 incidents recorded in 2005.

Of these, 14,930 incidents were classed as more serious primary fires, with 5,774 of those started deliberately.

False alarms

A further 33,907 were described as secondary fires, which includes grass and rubbish fires There were also 1,683 chimney fires reported.

Half of the 52 fire victims in 2006 lost their lives as a result of being overcome by gas or smoke, while 14 people died as a result of a combination of burns and gas or smoke. Eight deaths were caused by burns alone.

There were 35 people killed in accidental house fires, including 10 fatal fires where smokers' materials and matches were the source of the blaze and nine where the source was a cooking appliance, mainly involving chip pan fires.

At 1,635 the number of people injured in fires was also the lowest for a decade, with the 2006 total 2% lower than the previous year.

Despite the fall, Scotland had the highest rate of non-fatal fire causalities per head of population in the UK.

The figures also showed that there were more false alarms than actual fires.

There were 54,263 false alarms in 2006 - 52% of all call outs and more than the previous year when there were 53,506 such incidents.

However the number of malicious false alarms fell from 5,762 in 2005 to 5,276 in 2006.