Gas Explosions, Compressed Gas, or Gas Leak Evacuation

Ref: FOI22091

RE: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 REQUEST

I am writing to confirm that the West Midlands Fire Service has now completed its search for the information you requested further to your freedom of information request.

Please find below a summary of our findings.

For the annual years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (up until the date this email is received).

Request

The number of properties your fire service has been called out to as a result of a gas explosion, compressed gas, or a gas leak evacuation.

If possible, can you break down this number by those three categories and give a separate number for each. e.g. 2018: gas explosion 10, compressed gas 12, gas leak evacuation 9.

Reply

Incident information is recorded different depending on the nature of the call. See below for a list of both special service calls and primary incidents attended. This information is recorded under different headings

Request

The number of people evacuated as a result of a gas explosion, compressed gas, or gas leak. Similarly can I have that number broken down by category.

If you only record the number of evacuations made by the force please can you provide that in a similar format.

Reply

We don’t record the number of evacuees for a Special Service Call therefor this information is exempt under section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as we do not hold this information. We do however record the below information for primary incidents. Please see below

Please note the following:

• The information for the current financial year may not be accurate due to data quality checks and ongoing checks in the data
• Compressed gas is not a recognised incident type and is therefore not included within this data
• The data is grouped by financial year
• The number of evacuees are recorded as ‘assisted’ and ‘unassisted’; this means the unassisted may have evacuated prior to the arrival of WMFS
• The data is based on attended incidents not by the number of properties

If you have any queries about this Freedom of Information request, please contact us. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

For service complaints, issues or comments regarding this request please contact The Public Relations Department, West Midlands Fire Service, 99 Vauxhall Road, Birmingham, B7 4HW

Further information concerning Freedom of Information requests can be found on the Information Commissioner website at either the following link: https://ico.org.uk/ or at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.