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- Dave Burrows
Arson attacks rise by a third in Shropshire
Thursday 5th January 2012, 7:00PM GMT.
Shropshire saw a 30 per cent rise in the number of arson attacks in the final nine months of 2011, fire chiefs today revealed.
Between April and December last year, Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service dealt with 748 cases of arson – compared to 574 in the same period of 2010. The volume of calls received by the service remained stable, with a total of 3,729 in the 2011 period compared with 3,680 in 2010.
John Redmond, deputy fire chief officer, said although call volume for all incidents had only increased slightly, the service had dealt with 14 per cent more fires.
He said the arson figures were included in an overall 37 per cent increase in the number of secondary fires – those related to bins and rubbish being set alight.
Mr Redmond said the service had seen spikes in the number of incidents they had to deal with in April and August last year.
“We had two real spikes in activity – one in April where we had something like nearly double the normal number of fires in April,” he said.
“It was the month of the Royal Wedding, so there was additional bank holidays and people were off work for a longer period of time.
“It was a dry month – the driest April for many, many years. We had 5mm of rainfall in April, where you would normally get 20mm. There was also more outdoor cooking like barbecues.
“We had something in the region of about 250 incidents and you would normally expect half that, if not less.”
Mr Redmond added there was a similar situation in August, when the service dealt with about 220 fires during the month.
He said there were similar reasons behind the rise to the ones in April – such as bank holidays and dry weather.
Mr Redmond asked the public could help prevent the service by keeping a look-out for people setting fires to bins and rubbish.
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