Fire Safety, Arson & Deliberate Fire Setting

What is Fire Safety?

Fire and Rescue Services play the key role in fire and rescue capability. The services have moved on from what was primarily a fire-fighting service to being proactive organisations dedicated to the prevention of fires, deaths and injuries from fires and emergencies such as road crashes, chemical incidents, and flooding. These twin aims of prevention and intervention have focused on co-ordinating fire safety education and working with local partners, such as Community Safety Partnerships, particularly around Arson and Deliberate Fire Setting, thereby contributing significantly to the community safety agenda in Wales.

In Wales, there are three Fire and Rescue services: Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service; South Wales Fire and Rescue Service and North Wales Fire And Rescue Service.

What is Arson?

Arson is when someone deliberately sets fire to someone else’s property to damage it or to injure people. The maximum penalty for anyone found guilty of arson is imprisonment for life due to the exceptional danger involved, threat to life and damage to property. 

We have seen that arson not only destroys homes and lives but it can devastate the environment around us. Reducing arson helps to protect the quality and viability of the places we live, work, learn and spend our leisure time. We need to work with volunteers, communities and groups across Wales to help them reduce the incidence and impact of arson within their own communities. We want to protect our communities from anti-social behaviour linked to fire setting, such as fly tipping, waste burning and vandalism within schools and colleges. We want to deliver a cultural shift across Wales so that communities view arson as socially unacceptable and are active in terms of community resilience. Wales Arson Reduction Strategy