I have to agree that if anyone wants to say that there is a trend of 'fires are rising'  it is not really true; that line may have looked a reasonable fit to the data if it had stopped somewhere between 2010 -2012 ish - but now  it is fairer to say that there was a  rapid up-step around 2008-2009  that is not really explained, and then a very slow decline starting a few years later and continuing to the present. I felt it interesting, hence why I posted it as an  image - It's main features of interest are that it  does not create any  justification for AFDDs or any other tighter regulation, nor does it support the oft-quoted idea that the introduction of Part P resulted in any instant safety improvement at least in terms of fires.

Mike.

Sell it seems that we have to factor in PEN faults as a cause too -

engx.theiet.org/.../rise-in-deadly-electrical-faults-increasing-risk-of-fires-across-uk

I wonder how many have noticed that this graph is a composite of Wales and Scotland only, not England at all, and both of these areas have other implementations of Part P?

The whole thing requires a great deal more proper research than this. I contend that fixed wiring fires are rare, and that very few alleged ones are investigated properly. I agree with the above comments that measurement methods are probably the cause of this data, they are very inconsistent!

The rather fishy thing about that graph is that it says that there's no data for 2009, and the figure goes up from about 3000 to 5000 each side of that missing data.  It strongly suggests that they have changed the way they calculated it.

Or else the 2009 figures got rolled into 2010 by mistake.

David, I think the graph shows three sources of data: Home Office, Stats Wales and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

David

The rather fishy thing about that graph is that it says that there's no data for 2009, and the figure goes up from about 3000 to 5000 each side of that missing data.  It strongly suggests that they have changed the way they calculated it.

It did: The main article says " the introduction of the national incident recording system (IRS) in April 2009."

(I did mention that in an earlier reply, but it doesn't seem to show up most of the time)

   - Andy.

I found the article thin on evidence and sources and bordering on the tabloid tbh. 

Scaremongering in my honest view. Surely the increase in reports is because of the new requirement to report as per the article?

As the ENA have stated, the risk is very low.

Where did the Electrical Safety First get the figures of 40 people a year being injured by PEN faults? Where is this information and has it been verified?

An important question and awareness is good but equal important that we present the facts and not dramatise these things in order to get clicks.

(I did mention that in an earlier reply, but it doesn't seem to show up most of the time)

Ah, fount it! Its seems there is an engx "article" (which looks very much like a normal forum thread) sat between here and the real article - so so after reading the main article and hitting the back button to get back here, I was actually in the engx "article" rather than here.

As the ENA have stated, the risk is very low.

Where did the Electrical Safety First get the figures of 40 people a year being injured by PEN faults? Where is this information and has it been verified?

Have you been reading a different article from me? ... or to put it another way, if there an interesting PEN faults article somewhere I've missed?

         - Andy.

Same article AJ. ESF indicated 10% of the 474 incidents resulted in injury. Of course we have to be careful about that also. There were 54 personal injury claims after a bus crash in Belfast. No other vehicles involved and only 12 people on the bus! 
Also, you get a flavour of the direction of bias in the language used by the author of the article. It was mentioned that tens of thousands of houses could be affected. That figure is based on 474 incidents with up to 50 houses being affected, so 23700 at the maximum end of the scale and probably a lot less.