Official Statistics

Domestic appliance fires dataset guidance

Updated 23 August 2024

Applies to England

Publishing Incident Recording System data on the fire and rescue service at an Incident Level:

Frequency of release: Annual

First publication: 27 April 2017

Latest update: 25 July 2024

Forthcoming releases: Home Office statistics release calendar

Home Office responsible statistician: Helene Clark

Press enquiries: pressoffice@homeoffice.gov.uk

Telephone: 0300 123 3535

Public enquiries: firestatistics@homeoffice.gov.uk

1. Background

Data quality

Incident records in the Incident Recording System (IRS) are the responsibility of and quality assured by fire and rescue services (FRSs). The Home Office and FRSs work together to improve the data within the IRS and minimise any inconsistencies or errors. However, as the IRS was not designed with record level datasets in mind, a very small number of previously unidentified inconsistencies have been discovered, see project overview for further detail.

IRS incident records are a judgement call of the lead fire officer at the time of the incident. The quality of the information provided by fire and rescue services is variable and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed, especially at a record level, for instance some records involve estimation by those in attendance.

Dataset rationale

When asked, FRSs said that domestic appliance fires was one of the most common topics covered by Freedom of Information requests they received. We reflected this by publishing this dataset in ‘Tranche One’ and updating it towards the start of the annual round of updates since. The Home Office has, and will continue to, engage with stakeholders, such as statistical users and FRSs, to gauge opinion on the most useful datasets to publish.

Dataset definition

The domestic appliance fires dataset covers incidents attended by FRSs that were primary dwelling fires in England where the source of ignition was a domestic appliance. The Home Office only has jurisdiction for fire policy in England and has therefore published incident data for England only.

A domestic appliance is defined as one of the following “Cooker incl. oven”, “Ring/hot plate (separate appliance)”, “Microwave oven”, “Grill/Toaster”, “Barbecue”, “Camping stove”, “Other cooking appliance”, “TV”, “Audio equipment”, “PC equipment (domestic use)”, “Video/DVD”, “Washing machine”, “Tumble dryer”, “Vacuum cleaner”, “Iron”, “Extractor fan”, “Dishwasher”, “Electric blanket”, “Hair dryer”, “Electric kettle”, “Blow lamp/Paint remover”, “Gardening equipment”, “Other domestic style appliance”, “Fridge/Freezer”, “Other electrical visual equipment”, “Battery charger”, “Spin dryer”, “Washer/Dryer combined” or “Deep fat fryer”.

A dwelling is defined as “a property that is a place of residence, that is, occupied by households”. The definition includes residential homes, sheltered accommodation, caravans, houseboats and houses of multiple occupancy (HMO) but it does not include hostels, hotels and residential institutions, bed and breakfast establishments, nursing/care homes and student halls of residence. Fires in common areas of flats (such as stairs) are included.

Fires in derelict dwellings are only included if they are considered a primary fire (that is, the fire involved a fatality, casualty or rescue or the fire was attended by 5 or more pumping appliances). Derelict dwellings are defined as those unfit for further use; awaiting demolition or under demolition.

The data in this dataset is consistent with records that reached the IRS by 15 May 2024.

2. Variable by variable - scene setting

Variable Name:

FRS_TERRITORY

Variable Description:

The FRS in which the dwelling fire took place

IRS Question: 1.6

The fire and rescue service (FRS) refers to the territory in which the incident took place, not necessarily the FRS which responded. Occasionally an FRS will respond to an incident “over the border”, because of this users should be careful about making general comments about particular FRSs as some incidents may have been responded to by other FRSs. This dataset only covers incidents that took place in England.

Due to data protection issues we have merged Isles of Scilly data with Cornwall, as the number of domestic appliance fires in Isle of Scilly is minimal [there were 7 between the financial year 2010 to 2011 and 2023 to 2024]. Figures for Dorset and Wiltshire, who merged into one FRS on 1st April 2016, are presented as merged throughout the whole time span.

Variable Name:

E_CODE_TERRITORY

Variable Description:

The E Code of the FRS

IRS Question:

1.6 (based on)

The standard National Statistics code (E Code) of the fire and rescue service (FRS) in FRS_NAME. In this case the code for Cornwall has been used for the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly combined FRS.

Variable Name:

FINANCIAL_YEAR

Variable Description:

The financial year the dwelling fire took place

IRS Question:

2.1 (based on)

A financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March. Record level information is published from 2010 to 2011 - although the IRS began in April 2009 there are a few minor issues with the 2009 to 2010 records which mean that while statistics at higher levels are robust some of the incident level records are not of a sufficient quality to publish. Incidents are allocated to financial year depending on the time of the call, which is usually collected through automatic systems, so for example an incident where the call was made at 23.59 on March 31 2010 but the incident was closed at 01.34 on April 1 2010 would be allocated to 2009 to 2010 not 2010 to 2011.

3. Variable by variable - situation

Variable Name:

DWELLING_TYPE

Variable Description:

The type of dwelling the fire was in

IRS Question:

3.2

The domestic appliance fires dataset only covers primary fires, this excludes derelict dwellings unless five or more pumping appliances attended the incident or it resulted in a fatality, casualty or rescue. The definitions used for this variable are those used in the Census 2011 and are consistent with FIRE0205.

There are 8 possible answers to this variable (“Bungalow - single occupancy”, “Converted Flat/Maisonette - single occupancy”, “Dwelling - Multiple occupancy”, “House - single occupancy”, “Other dwelling”, “Purpose Built High Rise (10 or more) Flat”, “Purpose Built Medium Rise (4 to 9) Flat” and “Purpose Built Low Rise (1 to 3) Flats/Maisonette”.

Variable Name:

DOMESTIC_APPLIANCE_TYPE

Variable Description:

The domestic appliance that was the source of ignition

IRS Question:

8.4

This variable contains options that best describe the appliance, installation or other source of ignition. The domestic appliances included in this variable are “Cooker incl. oven”, “Ring/hot plate (separate appliance)”, “Microwave oven”, “Grill/Toaster”, “Barbecue”, “Camping stove”, “Other cooking appliance”, “TV”, “Audio equipment”, “PC equipment (domestic use)”, “Video/DVD”, “Washing machine”, “Tumble dryer”, “Vacuum cleaner”, “Iron”, “Extractor fan”, “Dishwasher”, “Electric blanket”, “Hair dryer”, “Electric kettle”, “Blow lamp/Paint remover”, “Gardening equipment”, “Other domestic style appliance”, “Fridge/Freezer”, “Other electrical visual equipment”, “Battery charger”, “Spin dryer”, “Washer/Dryer combined” and “Deep fat fryer”.

Variable Name:

MAKE_MODEL_CODE_DA

Variable Description:

The three letter code of the make/model of the domestic appliance that was the source of ignition.

IRS Question:

Based on 8.2

This variable is a 3 letter code for the make and/or model of the faulty appliance or equipment that was the source of ignition for the fire. The question from the IRS that this variable is based on is only asked when the cause of fire was recorded as a piece of faulty appliance or equipment or a faulty lead to that appliance or equipment. It is a free text box, so this has been converted into a usable format for this exercise. The question is not mandatory and in some cases the make/model would not be identifiable by FRSs. The quality and extent of the make/model information provided by FRSs is variable and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Recorded incidents do not include judgments on whether the cause of the incident related to the make/model (either its manufacture or maintenance), other circumstances or a combination of those factors. This information should not, therefore, be used in isolation to make judgments about the safety of particular makes/models.

Variable Name:

MAKE_MODEL_DESCRIPTION_DA

Variable Description:

The full name of the make/model of the domestic appliance that was the source of ignition.

IRS Question:

Based 8.2

This variable is the full name for the make and/or model of the faulty appliance or equipment that was the source of ignition for the fire. The question from the IRS that this variable is based on is only asked when the cause of fire was recorded as a piece of faulty appliance or equipment or a faulty lead to that appliance or equipment. It is a free text box, so this has been converted into a usable format for this exercise. The question is not mandatory and in some cases the make/model would not be identifiable by FRSs. The quality and extent of the make/model information provided by FRSs is variable and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Recorded incidents do not include judgments on whether the cause of the incident related to the make/model (either its manufacture or maintenance), other circumstances or a combination of those factors. This information should not, therefore, be used in isolation to make judgments about the safety of particular makes/models.

4. Variable by variable - the fire

Variable Name:

ACCIDENTAL_OR_DELIBERATE

Variable Description:

Whether the incident was recorded as an accidental or deliberate fire

IRS Question:

5.15

A deliberate fire is a fire believed to have been started deliberately such as suspected arson and some fires started by children, psychiatric patients, suicides and attempted suicides. Accidental fires include those where the motive was recorded as “not known”. Whilst we would not expect the fires for “deliberate fires” to match precisely the published figures for arson in the tables from the Crime in England and Wales statistical release, we would expect “deliberate fires for dwellings, other dwellings and vehicles” to be similar to the arson figures.

Variable Name:

CAUSE_OF_FIRE

Variable Description:

The main cause of the fire

IRS Question:

8.1

This variable contains options that best describe the main cause of the fire. FRSs are not necessarily certain that the fire was due to the cause given, only that the cause was one that could be reasonably supposed, given the evidence available. The cause may change as more evidence through a fire investigation becomes available.

Variable Name:

IGNITION_POWER

Variable Description:

What powered the ignition of the fire

IRS Question:

8.5

This variable contains options that best describe the main source of the ignition’s power. It is not necessary to be certain that the fire was due to the power given, only that the power was one that could be reasonably supposed, given the evidence available. The cause may change as more evidence through a fire investigation becomes available.

5. Variable by variable - resourcing

Variable Name:

VEHICLES

Variable Description:

The number of fire service vehicles that attended the incident

IRS Question:

6.2

The total number of FRS vehicles that attended the incident. This includes all types of vehicle, for example hazardous materials units, fire boats and canteen vans would be included in this total. Large numbers are grouped for ease of use and to reduce the personal data risk of incidents being matched across datasets. For example there is likely to be few incidents attended by 47 vehicles and this could be matched to other datasets containing this variable but grouping these in the “15 or more” grouping makes this impossible.

Variable Name:

VEHICLES_CODE

Variable Description:

A code to help users analyse data

IRS Question:

6.2

Because some of the options in the vehicles variable contains letters (for example, 15 or more) this code has been added after feedback from users to aid analysis. 99 is used for “don’t know”.

Variable Name:

PERSONNEL

Variable Description:

The number of fire crew and officers that attended the incident

IRS Question:

Combination of 6.1 and 6.4

The number of FRS personnel that attended the incident on fire service appliances or by other means (for example, their own vehicle, on foot). Large numbers of personnel are grouped for ease of use and to reduce the personal data risk of incidents being matched across datasets. For example, there are likely to be few incidents attended by 147 officers and this could be matched to other datasets containing this variable but grouping these in the “40 or more” grouping makes this impossible.

Variable Name:

PERSONNEL_CODE

Variable Description:

A code to help users analyse data

IRS Question:

Combination of 6.1 and 6.4

Because some of the options in the personnel variable contains letters (for example, 40 or more) this code has been added after feedback from users to aid analysis. 99 is used for “don’t know”.

6. Variable by variable - outcomes

Variable Name:

FATALITY_CASUALTY

Variable Description:

Whether the incident involved a fatality or casualty

IRS Question:

Combination of 9.6 and 9.21

This records whether the incident involved at least one fire-related fatality or one casualty from the fire.

To be consistent with published statistics the variable combines “fire-related fatality” and “casualty in the fire” (whether fire-related or not). Where “don’t know” is recorded for whether a fatality is fire-related it is included in the fire-related totals. In general, ‘fire-related fatalities’ are those that would not have occurred had there not been a fire. Casualties include those with injuries requiring hospital attention, those requiring first aid at the scene and those given advice to have precautionary checks (whether they then take that advice or not).

Variable Name:

FIRE_DAMAGE_EXTENT

Variable Description:

The total horizontal area damaged by the flame and heat (square metre) at the stop of the fire.

IRS Question:

8.24

The total horizontal area damaged by the flame and/or heat (in square metres) at the stop of the fire.

Where an incident was due to fire spread, the extent of all the area affected is included. Where both the floor and ceiling are damaged in a room only that which had the greater amount of damage is included. The total aggregate of all horizontal damage is recorded, for example, if three floors are damaged, the total area is given. Vertical surfaces (for example, walls) that were damaged in the fire are not included, but the horizontal area occupied by damaged contents is included.

Where the horizontal area damaged was zero, this includes where damage was confined to vertical surfaces. A very small area would be included in ‘up to 5 metres squared’.

Variable Name:

FIRE_DAMAGE_EXTENT _CODE

Variable Description:

A code to help users analyse data

IRS Question:

8.24

Because all of the options in the time at scene variable contains letters (for example, Up to 5) this code has been added after feedback from users to aid analysis.