The Service is running a pilot scheme, which will be the first in Scotland, involving community safety staff from the Service working in the local community, The Service wants to reduce the number of deliberately set fires and hoax calls received by engaging with young people in the community.  Research has shown that young people (although not exclusively) are responsible for most incidences of deliberate fire setting.

Specially trained and equipped community safety staff, using mountain bikes will be making highly visible visits to the areas where deliberate fire are most often set or malicious calls are received from. The aim is to engage with local people to explain the consequences of these actions such as loss of life damage, to property and the risk to fire fighters.

By using information from our records of deliberately set fires and hoax calls, the team can target their work to specific areas and even down to the times when these events occur. The team can work in any of the three Central Scotland council areas depending on need.

Whilst in the run up to bonfire night 158 calls were received to deliberately set fires, in the first quarter of this year 466 incidents occurred, including 34 fires to valuable property.  The scheme has been used by a few fire and rescue service in England where there has been a significant reduction of these types of incidents has occurred.

Director of Service Delivery Thomas Mann says "Deliberately set fires and malicious calls place a significant strain on our resources. We must reduce the number of these types of incidents before life is lost either as a result of a deliberate fire, or our resources being diverted to such a fire and not being available when needed somewhere else."

The pilot scheme will run for a six month period after which a full evaluation will take place.