FOI Request 2213

Subject: Illegal Bonfires

Status: Complete

Date received: August 2025

Question Asked:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request the following information for the period 1 January 2023 - 22 August 2025:

1. The total number of illegal bonfires attended and extinguished by your service.

2. Of these, how many occurred on business premises.

3. Of these, how many were started using or involved POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) waste.

4. The date and time of each incident.

5. Whether any enforcement action, penalty or prosecution resulted.

Our Response:

Please see our response to your Freedom of Information Request below:

CFRS recording system (IRS) does not hold a field to record if a bonfire is ‘illegal’ or not. Quite a few controlled burning incidents are classed as false alarms or accidental fires if CFRS extinguish it. Therefore, we cannot answer this request.

Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act I am required to provide advice and assistance.

If you were able to reword your request to maybe just fires in business premises, we would happily conduct the search again.

Outcome: Data Not Held

FOI responded to within timescales: YES

Further action: NO