Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service prides itself on the range and quality of its community safety activities that have been instrumental in continually driving down risk of incidents in Cumbria over previous years.
In Cumbria, there were 57 accidental primary dwelling fires in quarter 1 2022/23, compared to 62 in quarter 1 2021/22. There is continually ongoing work to reduce the instances of accidental primary dwelling fires in Cumbria such as supporting local and national campaigns, the introduction of the Service’s online home fire safety check and spreading the word about fire safety in the home to a range of communities.
Members of the public are able to carry out a fire risk assessment on your home, or for someone who you think might be at risk, by using Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service’s free Online Home Safety Check tool.
The Service have also conducted a range of Safe and Well Visits for residents who are identified or referred to the Service as ‘high-risk’ throughout the county. The aim of a Safe and Well Visit is to help people live independently and deal with any potential fire hazards in their homes.
Cllr Janet Willis, Cumbria County Council’s Cabinet Member for Fire and Rescue Service said:
“As a Service, we will enforce, consult, support and provide fire safety advice to people and businesses across the county using a risk-based approach that takes into account of what is likely to happen, where it is likely to happen and what the likely outcomes will be.”
Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service are continually aiming to improve their community safety activity to reduce the number of incidents in Cumbria by:
- Developing their community safety role by working in partnerships to deliver effective and cost-efficient community safety activities.
- Educating communities about the risk associated with fire and other hazards.
- Promoting risk reduction measures for the elderly and vulnerable.
- Promoting fire safety design measures for all buildings.
- Promoting safe behaviour and encouraging residents to take ownership of their safety and wellbeing i.e., in water and on roads.
- Working to reduce the negative impacts such as arson in communities.
- Delivering an efficient and effective emergency response whenever it is required.
Janet added:
“We invest considerable effort and resources into emergency incident prevention activities. Whilst our community prevention work has fire as its core, our work has expanded to include road safety, anti-social behaviour, and water safety.
“We will continue to deliver a wide range of community safety activities to achieve further reductions in the number of incidents we attend, which will also contribute to making our communities safer and healthier.
“Our future activities will be focused on preventing emergencies from happening. Prevention is always better than cure. We are fully committed to preventing incidents from happening in the first place. To do this, more education is needed, through engagement and awareness campaigns, so that people fully understand the risks and are better prepared.”
