Benefits of the service

FireStoppers provides Fire Services with a number of benefits, it:

• Is an extra tool in your fire prevention strategy.
• Can help to reduce incidents of deliberate fire/arson.
• Gives Fire Services and their partner organisations a reporting channel to which they can drive information following an incident.
• Provides a brand that can underpin deterrent messages.
• Is supported by a set of assets that you can use across your region to raise awareness of the steps you are taking to make communities and rural areas safer.
• Guarantees all who have information 100% anonymity when they pass it on.
• Gives peace of mind for those with information – there will be no repercussions as a result of telling you what they know; nobody will know it was them; we won’t ask who they are, just what they know.
• Demonstrates the importance you are putting on fire reduction to stakeholders and communities.

Phil Innis, Group Manager, Emergency Response, County Durham and Darlington FRS, said:

“The FireStoppers initiative has generated particular interest from the inspectorate team during our HMICFRS audits in both 2018 and 2022. The audit team recognised the innovative yet simple nature of the initiative and included specific comment in our 2018 report."

"The service has worked with the charity Crimestoppers UK on a campaign to reduce deliberate fire setting. There were fewer deliberate fires during the campaign than in the same period the previous year. The campaign has now been broadened to cover the whole service area and two other fire and rescue services are jointly running it in the North East. (County Durham & Darlington HMICFRS report 2018.)

"FireStoppers has significant potential to affect the impact of deliberated fires on communities across the UK and is gaining momentum as additional FRSs adopt the brand. It is hoped that HMICFRS recognise FireStoppers as good practice again when our 2022 report is published later this year.”