Fire crews deal with rising number of incidents of waste set alight

A HUGE proportion of the arson incidents that took place in a Yorkshire city in recent months have involved waste and fly tipping being set alight.

A new report by West Yorkshire Fire Authority includes details of the work of the force in over the past six months, a period where Covid has seen massive changes to how public services run. The pandemic and subsequent lockdown has led to some understandable drops in incidents the service has been called out to in Bradford.

The number of car crashes crews are called out to provide support was 47 between April and September, compared with 60 in the same period in 2019. But fire crews were called out to 1,014 “secondary arsons” between April and October, up from 988 the same time last year.

This was despite the fact that for much of this period people were advised not to leave their homes except for essential trips.

Secondary arson is a term for when waste, vegetation or grassland, but not a building or vehicle, is set on fire.

A report going to West Yorkshire Fire Authority’s Community Safety Committee tells members that three quarters of these secondary arsons involved people setting fire to fly tipping or waste.

It says: “We are still not seeing the reduction in these types of incidents we had hoped for.

“Due to the Covid- 19 lockdown, establishments such as schools, household waste sites were closed as a temporary measure. This was also coupled with unusually hot weather during April and May which saw deliberate/ grassland increase.

“As a direct result, we feel this has had a significant impact on Secondary arson incidents. The breakdown of the overall figure shows that three quarters of the reported fires were recorded as refuse/ fly tipping.”

Home related arsons dropped from 40 to 24, and non- domestic building fires fell from 48 to 41.