Electric blanket and heater fires

Received 14 February 2023

Request

The number of calls to fires caused by electric blankets and the number of calls to fires caused by plug-in electric heaters.

I would like the data from January 2017 until as recently as records allow. I would like the data to be broken down as follows:

• In both cases would like to know, in total, how many calls there were in each year: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
• For 2022 and 2023, I would like a month-by-month breakdown of the number of calls.
• In both cases, I would also like to know, in each year, the ages of the callers, if this information is held. If it is not, please omit.

Furthermore, I would like for you to provide a case summary of the last five callouts; five for blankets and five for heaters.

Response

We do not have a category for plug-in electric heaters, so the nearest category has been used, which is heater/fire where appliance power is electric and these are not necessarily plug in, they could be hard wired.

Ages of callers are not recorded.

The response to this request is subject to the limitations of the accuracy and completeness of the incident data provided by the personnel involved with the incidents and the limitations of the software for recording incidents. In addition, any incidents since 7 June 2022 may be inaccurate, incomplete or missing altogether, due to the Vision 4 upgrade.

Electric blanket and heater incident data (PDF)