Firefighters facing fewer work attacks

The number of attacks on firefighters dropped by almost 30% last year.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said there were 80 assaults on staff called out to incidents, compared to 112 the previous year.

The figure was revealed in statistics covering various aspects of the work of Scotland’s eight former fire and rescue services in 2012/13.

The regional brigades joined to become a single service in April this year.

Last year, fire crews carried out 56,251 home fire safety visits about one per 45 homes in Scotland and installed 44,122 smoke alarms.

They completed 7,994 fire safety audits at businesses and served 43 enforcement notices and 22 prohibition notices.

Later inspections found 90% of premises had complied.