NFRS 2023 129 - Cars fires

You asked for

I am conducting research on behalf of the Institute of Occupational Safety & Health ‘s (IOSH) Fire Risk Management Group into the number of car fires that Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service attended between the years 01 January 1995 – 31 December 2023 (inclusive).

I have particular interest in those fires occurring within multi-storey car parks. I would be grateful if the information could show:

1. The type of fuel in the vehicle of origin (e.g., petrol, diesel, Hybrid or electric).
2. The number of cars affected by such fire in each year.
3. The number of fires that resulted in, and the degree of, injury in each year.
4. Any reports following investigation into those fires.

Our Response:

1. The total number of car fires that Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service attended between 1995 and 2023.

   Answer: - Please be advised that we only hold data to 2010 as our incident management systems changed and we no longer have access to data prior to this date.

   Year	Car Fires (excluding car parks)	Number of Cars involved
   2010	517	532
   2011	403	414
   2012	373	393
   2013	276	278
   2014	263	279
   2015	297	308
   2016	362	395
   2017	323	374
   2018	350	383
   2019	289	324
   2020	258	265
   2021	222	240
   2022	217	233
   2023	216	245
   Total	4366	4672

2. Total number of incidents that related to fires in multi storey car parks.

   Answer: -

   Year	Multi-Storey Car Parks	Cars involved
   2010	0	0
   2011	0	0
   2012	1	1
   2013	1	2
   2014	0	0
   2015	1	1
   2016	0	0
   2017	1	10
   2018	1	5
   2019	0	0
   2020	0	0
   2021	0	0
   2022	0	0
   2023	0	0
   Total	5	19

3. The type of fuel in the vehicle of origin (e.g., petrol, diesel, Hybrid or electric).

   Answer: - No Information Held, our incident management system does not record the fuel type for a vehicle. We would have to rely on firefighter comments to which there were none that mentioned the fuel type for question two.

4. The number of cars affected by such fire in each year.

   Answer: - Please refer to the table in question one and two.

5. The number of fires that resulted in, and the degree of, injury in each year.

   Answer: - Total number of fatalities and injuries for all car fires.

   Year	Fatalities
   2010	0
   2011	0
   2012	0
   2013	0
   2014	0
   2015	0
   2016	0
   2017	0
   2018	1
   2019	0
   2020	0
   2021	1
   2022	0
   2023	1
   Total	3

   Year	First aid given at scene	Precautionary check recommended	Victim went to hospital, injuries appear to be serious	Victim went to hospital, injuries appear to be slight
   2010	2	0	0	0
   2011	1	0	0	1
   2012	1	0	0	0
   2013	0	1	0	1
   2014	0	0	0	1
   2015	0	1	1	1
   2016	0	0	0	0
   2017	2	0	0	2
   2018	0	0	0	0
   2019	0	1	0	1
   2020	0	0	1	0
   2021	0	1	0	1
   2022	1	0	0	0
   2023	0	0	0	0
   Total	7	4	2	8

6. Any reports following investigation into those fires.

   Answer: - Exempt by virtue of section 21 of 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 accessible only on payment, and
   2. Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members 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 does not fall within subsection (2)(b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself on request, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’s publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordance with, 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.

Disclosure of reports are a chargeable service and subject to redactions in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.

Details can be found at Asking for information