NFRS 2023 110 - Electric buses

You asked for

Please could you inform me of the numbers of incidents your brigade has attended for fires on:

1. electric buses (where the battery was believed to be the cause of the fire)?
2. hybrid-powered buses (those with duel power; electric and usually diesel orpetrol where the battery or hybrid power supply was believed to be the cause ofthe fire)? If you could break that down for the (financial or calendar) years for 2023, 2022 and 2021, if that data is available. If there have been any such incidents this year(2024), I would also like to receive that.
3. Based on the assumption that such incidents are relatively low, can you providedetails of each incident, including perhaps the when, where, owner of the vehicle(i.e. is it a public transport bus, minibus, school bus, double-decker, single-decker etc) and any other recorded particulars about the nature of the fire i.e. was the fire localised to the battery, did it spread, was the vehicle burnt out, wereany other vehicles of buildings ignited, how many appliances and firefighterswere in attendance, how long did it take to extinguish the fire/make it safe andwere there reports of any injuries?
4. Again, based on the assumption that such incidents are infrequent, was the fireservice ever required to write a report on any of the incidents. If so, could I havea copy of any such reports? I accept that may involve some redactions.

Our Response

1. electric buses (where the battery was believed to be the cause of the fire)?
   Answer: - 1 incident in 2022
2. hybrid-powered buses (those with duel power; electric and usually diesel orpetrol where the battery or hybrid power supply was believed to be the cause ofthe fire)?
   Answer: - No Information Held.
3. Based on the assumption that such incidents are relatively low, can you providedetails of each incident, including perhaps the when, where, owner of the vehicle(i.e. is it a public transport bus, minibus, school bus, double-decker, single-decker etc) and any other recorded particulars about the nature of the fire i.e.was the fire localised to the battery, did it spread, was the vehicle burnt out, wereany other vehicles of buildings ignited, how many appliances and firefighterswere in attendance, how long did it take to extinguish the fire/make it safe andwere there reports of any injuries?
   Answer: - The bus was completely burnt out, there was no other property damagedand no casualties. The incident was in Mansfield at 07:10, 4 appliances attended andthe fire lasted 2 hours 20 minutes.
4. Again, based on the assumption that such incidents are infrequent, was the fireservice ever required to write a report on any of the incidents. If so, could I havea copy of any such reports? I accept that may involve some redactions.
   Answer: - Exempt by virtue of section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000

The information requested has been deemed exempt by virtue of section 21(1) Information reasonably accessible by other means, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

21.Information accessible to applicant by other means.

1. Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information.
2. For the purposes of subsection (1)—
   1. Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessibleonly on payment, and
   2. Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is informationwhich the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment tocommunicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) tomembers of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.
3. For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public authority and doesnot fall within subsection (2)(b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to theapplicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself onrequest, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’spublication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordancewith, the scheme.

Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is categorised as an Absolute and Class Based type exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried nor must Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service articulate the harm in disclosure.

Request for incident reports can be made to Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. If you want a copy of a fire report, for example, to use with an insurance claim, please contact us. We only release fire reports to people or organisations with a legal interest in the report, for example, if the report is about your property. We charge £82.90 for fire reports.