Nearly 800 fires started deliberately in Dorset and Wiltshire last year
Arson incidents account for almost a quarter of blazes DWFRS dealt with
Firefighters from the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service attended 3,337 fires last year - of those, 772 were started deliberately and 2565 were accidental.
That's a 12% drop in the number across the fire service's county's according to DWFRS annual report.
It said preventing fires in the first place reduces the cost and damage to properties, loss of business and the terrible loss of life or serious injuries.
But by investing in prevention, the service can be proactive and reduce overall cost of responding to incidents.
Seth Why area manager for Dorset Fire and Rescue tells us they have the capacity to deal with the fires they are seeing.
"Although on average we had 10 fires a day, we do have enough fire engines to deal with this risk. We have a number of whole-time stations and a number of on-call stations which are generally in the more rural areas so that's about which make up around 50 stations across the service area from Lyme Regis up to Swindon in the north, and we deal with around 14,000 incidents each year.
"We did see an increase in fires last year particularly with regards to secondary fires, they are generally small outdoor fires not involving people or property and those sorts of incidents would be sort of rubbish fires grassland fires and fires in derelict buildings or vehicles.
"We saw an increase in the first few months of last year where more people were burning waste because of recycling centres being closed. Adding in the long hot summer spell it culminated in the Wareham forest fire, which meant that we had a high number of small fires out in the rural areas which demanded the attention of crews"
WORKING WITH CHILDREN WHO START FIRES DELIBERATELY
Firefighters also do a lot of work with children but the lockdowns meant the service held online sessions.
The brigade works with young people and children who start fires on purpose with their Firesetters programme - in 202-21 it had 34 referrals to it. “Talking to a young person early on is vital to stop the firesetting habit as soon as possible. Firesetting is dangerous and we can help to explain the dangers and consequences to the young person, in a sensitive and informed manner, Early intervention can greatly reduce the chances of it happening again.
The report adds the service is aiming to cut the number of deliberately set fires by half, saving £350,000 for the emergency and health services.