Firefighters from Mid and West Wales attended more than 13,000 incidents in 2023-24, but fewer than 20 per cent of them were fires.

By far the largest majority of call-outs were for false alarms, which the fire service has said it will no longer respond to in certain circumstances as of this month.

Overall, Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service went out to 13,071 incidents last financial year. These included: All false alarms (5,908), Accidental and deliberate fires (2,582), All medical response incidents (1,010), Road traffic accidents (782) and flooding (393)

The 2,582 fires represented 19.8 per cent of the total incidents attended, and sadly there were seven fire deaths.

Overall, the fire and rescue service attended 253 more incidents in 2023-24 than the previous year, including more flooding and road accidents. But there were 441 fewer fires.

10 years ago the service attended 3,916 fires but the number has generally fallen year on year to reach the current figure of 2,582. Just over half of them were classed as accidental; the remainder were deliberate.

Earlier in 2024 fire chiefs said staff would no longer attend automatic fire alarm call-outs from commercial and public sector buildings from July onwards, unless a report or reports accompanied them saying there was a fire.