The British government has published figures for fire deaths and injuries in England. Separate figures are reported by the Scottish and Welsh governments. There were 258 fire deaths in England, which is the lowest figure recorded and a decline of 6% on last year and of 30% over the past 10 years. This corresponds to 4.9 deaths per million population. Fire injuries were down by 6% on last year. For more details see English Fire Statistics.

Separately, the Welsh government reports that the number of fire brigade callouts declined by 5% on the previous year and is half what it was in 2002. There were 21 fire deaths, corresponding to a fire death rate of 6.8 per million population. Fire injuries were down by 13% on last year. For more details see Welsh Fire Statistics.

The improvements are probably the result of a combination of several factors, including community fire safety programmes by the Fire and Rescue Services, governmental public awareness programmes, reduced ignition propensity cigarettes, less smoking, better fire detection for fewer false alarms and of course sprinklers in the homes of many of the more vulnerable people.