Firefighters working hard to cut deliberate blazes

FIRE service chiefs insist that they are going all guns blazing to tackle deliberate fireraising in Dumfries and Galloway.

It comes after increases last year in the numbers of deliberate fires being set, writes Marc McLean.

Fire chiefs discussed the “concerning” problem with councillors, who wanted to know more about the fireraising awareness courses.

Describing their effectiveness, watch commander Steven Daykin said: “The fire safety support and education does work. You can look at quarter one for 2025/26 where there was a spike in deliberate fires. We spoke with three people, two of which were from that area.

“And over the next few quarters, the deliberate secondary fires had dropped dramatically, even compared with 2023/24.

“We do a lot of work with youth justice at secondary education level where it’s small groups, and the antisocial behaviour and fire-setting is discussed with them.”

In addition, the service is involved in the area-wide Operation Safety, which attended by 1100 primary seven pupils over a three-week period at DG1.

Discussions take place there on health and safety and bonfires, while community action teams go out to all the schools to speak about antisocial behaviour and deliberate fire-setting.

He added that fire safety education work has also done in partnership with social work and Police Scotland colleagues.