Calls to outdoor fires - Find a freedom of information request

Request

1.Could you please tell me how many calls to outdoor fires were attended each year, for the past five years (between 01/04/2017 and 01/04/2022), for all land owned or managed by Natural England and Forestry Commission in your area.

I would be interested in fires of any size, both primary and secondary, deliberate and accidental. Please also include false alarms. I have found the following sites in your area - SALTFLEETBY & THEDDLETHORPE DUNES National Nature Reserve - THE WASH NNR - THORNE NNR - ALKBOROUGH FLATS - Ostlers Plantation (Kirby Lane, Woodhall Spa LN10 6YY) - Stapleford Woods (Forestry Commission, Stapleford, Lincoln LN6 9LE) - Bourne Wood (Forestry Commission, Edenham Road, Bourne) - Kesteven Forest (Forestry Commission) - Laughton Forest (Forestry Commission) - Willingham Woods (Forestry Commission) - Chambers Farm Woods (Chambers Farm Wood Hoop Lane Wragby LN8 5JR) (Forestry Commission)

2.Can I also ask for the total number of hours spent at fires (incident time) and the total number of hours spent by appliances at fires (appliance time) for each year of the past five years too please? I would be looking for the total number of hours and minutes spent by all appliances, specials and officers cars at an incident, even if they were cancelled en route. Could you take each incident included in the data, e.g., Incident 1 in Forest X in 2017. 3.Then could you gather what vehicles were alerted of Incident 1 in Forest X in 2017. E.g.,

3 vehicles in total.

4.Then find the hours and minutes each vehicle "spent on the incident" worked out from the time that the call the 999 call came into the control room (and if relevent each different vehicle was alerted) to the time it became available again.

E.g., - Vehicle 1 Alerted: 9:00 Became available: 11:50 Total time: 2 hours and 50 minutes Vehicle 2 Alerted: 9:30 Became available: 9:33 (it was cancelled before making it to the scene) Total time: 3 minutes Vehicle 3 Alerted: 10:00 Became available: 10:20 Total time: 20 minutes

5.Then could the total vehicle times be added together to give the total time that was spent by all vehicles on that incident.

In the example above this would be: 2 hrs and 50 min

(Vehicle 1) + 3 min (Vehicle 2) + 20 min (Vehicle 3) = 3 hours and 13 minutes.

6.Once that has been worked out for each incident in a year, please could you add all the total times added together to give the yearly total in hours and minutes.

I am aware that sometimes incidents are reported vaguely such as "the woods off of London Road" without the full address.

Please could you do your best to capture these incidents too.

Could you also include any other sites owned by Natural England and the Forestry Commission/Forestry England that you cover that I may have missed please. I have been trying to find digital maps to assist with my request and capture land that hasnt been listed. I have been told by Natural England that "The information you seek is publicly available. The list of all of the National Nature Reserves can be found on Gov.UK on the link below. You can look by region and then by county to see which are owned and managed by Natural England and which are managed by other organisations. The contact details and addresses are also provided for all National Nature Reserves. Postal addresses are available on the lists for Natural England owned and managed sites. The attached link on Gov.UK is open data portal that provides information on all National Nature Reserves. If you click on a National Nature Reserve (NNR) and zoom in you will see a text box opens that provides data on size, area etc.

This data is based on GIS Government Open data policy.

I am aware that for similar requests, some services have sent these links on to their GIS or mapping teams who have overlayed them on the services incident map.

I hope this will assist you further in fulfilling my request. Can I also ask if you routinely notify public land owners, such as Forestry England and Natural England if a fire has occurred on their land that crews have attended and if you have a policy on this?

Decision

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council. I have detailed below the information that is being released to you.

Spreadsheet detailing the requested information attached. 

Should you require the attachment mentioned above please contact customerinformationservice@lincolnshire.gov.uk with the below reference number and this can be provided.

 

Reference number
FOI 4046653
Date request received
04/05/22
Date of decision
23/05/22