Fire casualties across Tayside have almost halved over five years thanks to emergency services working together.
Due to an increase in data sharing between NHS Tayside and Tayside Fire and Rescue Service, vulnerable people are being targeted for home safety advice.
This has resulted in the number of injuries or deaths caused by fires being cut from 116 in 2007/08 to 69 in 2011/12.
Group manager Rab Middlemiss praised this ”significant” reduction and revealed it was down to blazes being detected earlier and remaining within the room of origin.
”There is also a decrease in secondary fires in the Tayside area, which we feel relates to lot of prevention work being undertaken,” he added.
”One area where we have seen an increase is with automatic fire alarms, as 50% of emergency response calls we attend have them.
”We are looking at improvements when we respond to an automatic fire alarm and spend some time at the scene looking at ways to prevent the emergency happening again.”
The successes were unveiled as part of a presentation by Mr Middlemiss at Perth and Kinross Council’s community safety committee.
He told councillors how Tayside Fire and Rescue Service is outperforming its counterparts in other areas when it comes to preventative measures.
Over the last year, officers made almost 15,500 home visits, as well as a further 2,044 at non-domestic properties.
Mr Middlemiss continued: ”We are way in excess of other fire and rescue services in terms of home fire safety visits and audits.”
As well as helping to cut the number of fire casualties, working with other bodies also helped deal with one of the biggest incidents in more than a decade, when Wylie Recycling Centre in Perth was torn apart by a massive blaze in February.
”This was the largest incident in Tayside in 11 years and it was brought to a close in a short time with no injuries,” said Mr Middlemiss.
As part of efforts to continue improving the service, the service is working with wardens in housing schemes so they can be trained to deliver their own home safety visits to residents.
There are also hopes to increase contact with elderly and vulnerable people, with the visits also including falls prevention as well as fire safety advice.
The report by Mr Middlemiss was praised by Councillor Alexander Stewart, who said he was ”delighted” by the successes as they reflected Tayside’s important role in community safety in Scotland.”
He continued: ”We are in a better position here than our counterparts and we should look to lead these forces forward.
”The only issue I have is that we are not necessarily reaching a younger element within the process, such as teenagers and students.
”This is something we need to progress with.”Fife service achieves positive figuresThe number of house fires in Fife has fallen by 5%, according to figures released on Thursday.
Fife Fire and Rescue Service statistics for the 12 months from April 2011 show there were 235 ”accidental dwelling fires” compared to 247 in the previous year.
The number of casualties has also fallen by 9%, from 22 in 2010-11 to 20 in 2011-12.
The figures represent a marked 60% decrease from five years ago, when there were 51 casualties.
The numbers have been welcomed by Fife Fire and Rescue Service.
A spokeswoman said: ”These figures, which are statutory performance indicators used by each fire and rescue service as a benchmark, confirm Fife Fire and Rescue Service continues to be one of the top-performing services in the country.”
The service has also reported that there have been no casualties in the first quarter of this year.
”These results give us confidence that we have a solid foundation from which to progress into the new Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in the coming year,” the spokeswoman added.
The service puts the fall in house fires and casualties down to proactive preventative measures.
Station manager for community safety Dave Latto said: ”Prevention remains the number one priority in making our communities safe and last year saw the service introduce new software that allowed us to target the most vulnerable and hardest to reach people in Fife who are at the highest risk of having a fire related incident.
”Last year we carried out 5,291 home fire safety visits in domestic premises during which 5,150 long life smoke detectors where fitted free of charge.
”In addition to fitting long life smoke detectors in domestic premises, we work in partnership with Fife Council Social Work in fitting wi-fi smoke detection for the hard of hearing, and with the Fife Cares Team to fit smoke detection that can be paired up to the Telecare system which enables people to live with greater independence and safety in their own homes.”
Mr Latto said the service also audited 356 non-domestic premises and 288 houses in multiple occupation last year.