Out of the ashes | 10 September 2015

As a nation, we are learning to accept that our firemen are more and more redundant. The Fire Brigades Union fights austerity at every turn; its spokesmen say that every reduction in station numbers or jobs is a threat to public safety. One of their campaign posters even showed David Cameron and George Osborne alongside the words, ‘They slash. You burn.’

But the statistics undermine the union’s manipulative language of doom. The cuts have been matched by a continuing decline in dangerous fires. According to figures released at the end of last month, the fire brigades attended 495,000 incidents in the year 2014–15, a decrease of 42 per cent compared with ten years ago. But of these incidents, only 31 per cent were actual fires: 44 per cent were false alarms, with other operations like floods, road traffic and animal rescue making up the rest. In 2014–15 there were 258 fire deaths in England, 16 fewer than in the previous year and 30 per cent lower than ten years ago.