The number of accidental fires in the home has fallen to its lowest ever recorded in East Sussex and Brighton and Hove.
Between 1 April 2024 and 30 March 2025, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service recorded 366 accidental dwelling fires – a decrease from the previous year’s 436.
More than 90% of these fires were confined to the room in which they started.
Overall, there was a decrease in the number of incidents attended by the Service from 10,562 the previous year to 9,422.
Overall fires affecting property (known as Primary fires) has decreased from 1,011 to 900, and the number of deliberate fires decreased from 707 to 673.
Chief Fire Officer Mark Matthews said:
“Our prevention work saves lives, and we must continue to do all we can to keep those we protect, safe. We have teams and crews across the Service focusing on how we can still improve, and we will continue to work hard to make our communities safer."
Reducing risk
We carry out a range of activities to reduce the risk of incidents including fitting smoke alarms, engagement with schools, road safety campaigns and special events.
In 2024/25 we carried out 9,017 Home Safety Visits. 91.7% of these home safety visits were to vulnerable people within our community
We also carried out 504 fire safety inspections of high-risk premises, and 1117 fire safety checks were completed by operational fire crews.
Response standards
Whenever you call us in an emergency, your call comes into our Joint Fire Control, which then mobilises the quickest or most appropriate fire appliance, along with any other specialist vehicles/officers depending upon the problem.
Our response standards are as follows:
- The first arriving appliances at any incident from an 'On-Station response' within 10 minutes 70% of the time
- The first arriving appliances at any incident from an 'On-Call response' within 15 minutes 70% of the time
We continue to exceed these targets:
• 76.4% of the first arriving appliances at any incident from an ‘On- Station response’ within 10 minutes.
• 74.4% of the first arriving appliances at any incident from an ‘On-Call response’ within 15 minutes.
Impact Report
These figures are part of the Service’s new Impact Report, which shines a light on how our approach has affected people's lives. You can read more here: Impact Report - Every Contact Counts | East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service
What the public say about us
We always like to hear from those we have helped.
“My wife and I would just like to say a huge thank you to the crew who dealt with our chimney fire. We are fully aware that the fire could have easily spread into our roof, causing significant damage, however their prompt arrival and actions clearly prevented this from happening.”
“I had my visit today and found the two gentlemen who visited really friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. I very much appreciated their willingness to listen to me, answer my questions, and give me relevant but non-prescriptive advice. They were even able to refer me to Meals on Wheels which I was not expecting but really appreciated.”
