FOIA Balcony fires data required
Dear County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service,
Please supply me with data relating to fires on balconies on residential buildings in your area, as follows;
How many fires involving balconies occurred in total between 1st August 2022 and 31st July 2023?
In the same period, how many fires occurred where balconies where found to have contributed to the spread of the fire across the external walls?
Please provide data on the causes of any fires that started on balconies in the period (ie; barbecue, discarded cigarette, electrical appliance fault, etc) and please provide the number of occurrences for each cause.
If your incident recording system does not include "balcony" as a recorded location, could you please perform a search on free text fields in your database for the term, as I have found in the past that this often returns useable data.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Hutcheon
Good Afternoon
Thank you for your email, it has now been passed to our Information team who will respond in due course.
Regards
Darlene Tait
Dear Mr. Hutcheon,
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST
REF: 1842 - Fires Involving Balconies
I acknowledge your request for information received on 3rd August 2023
Your request is being considered and you will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third party.
For your information, the act defines a number of exemptions which may prevent release of the information you have requested. There will be an assessment and if any of the exemption categories apply then the information will not be released. You will be informed if this is the case, including your rights of appeal.
If you have any queries or concerns, then please contact me on my details below.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Brownson
FireWatch System Administrator
County Durham & Darlington Fire & Rescue Service
Direct Dial: 0191 375 5577
Email: [email address]
http://www.ddfire.gov.uk/
Safest People, Safest Places
2 or 3 breaths of toxic smoke and you’re unconscious
Don’t drown in toxic smoke
Test your smoke alarm today
Fire Service Headquarters, Belmont Business Park, Durham DH1 1TW
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Dear Mr Hutcheon,
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST
REF: 1842 - Fires Involving Balconies
I am writing in response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
for information about incidents involving balconies.
I have checked our records and found that we do not have any incidents
recorded in our incident recording system that specifically mention the
term "balcony." However, it is worth noting that the term "balcony" has
been used in the past in our free text field, which is a more informal way
of recording information. There is no expectation for crews to add free
text information to this level of detail, so it is possible that there
have been incidents involving balconies that were not specifically
recorded in our system.
For clarity, I can confirm that there have been no incidents involving
balconies recorded in our system during the time period that you
requested.
I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you have any
further questions.
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been
handled, you can request a review by contacting the Freedom of Information
Officer at the address below.
If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint,
you have the right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at: The
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF, Telephone: 0303 123 1113, Website: [1]www.ico.org.uk.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Brownson
FireWatch System Administrator
County Durham & Darlington Fire & Rescue Service
Direct Dial: 0191 375 5577
Email: [2][email address]
[3]www.ddfire.gov.uk
Safest People, Safest Places
2 or 3 breaths of toxic smoke and you’re unconscious
Don’t drown in toxic smoke
Test your smoke alarm today
Fire Service Headquarters, Belmont Business Park, Durham DH1 1TW
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
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References
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