Fewer people are being injured in fires, new figures show.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has published statistics showing 38 people were injured in fires in Aberdeen in 2016/17, compared with 71 in 2015/16.
In Aberdeenshire, the number of injuries in the same time period fell from 37 to 27.
Four people died in fires in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire in 2016/17, the figures show, including Mark Hems, 42, who was caught up in an accidental blaze at his flat on Nellfield Place, Aberdeen, on Christmas Eve 2016.
The statistics reveal a decrease in the total number of blazes that fire crews were called to in Aberdeen, from 1,004 in 2015/16 to 892 in 2016/17.
The number rose from 665 to 743 in Aberdeenshire.
Of those, 170 were accidental fires at houses or flats – a fall of 10 on the previous year. The number of accidental house or flat fires in Aberdeen stayed the same, at 299.
According to the statistics, firefighters are dealing with more “false alarm” incidents – where they attend a scene but there is no fire. The number of false alarms in Aberdeen rose from 2,230 in 2015/16 to 2,548 in 2016/17, and rose from 1,106 to 1,159 in Aberdeenshire.
However, the number of those calls that were malicious fell from 113 to 103 in Aberdeen and from 35 to 32 in Aberdeenshire.
SFRS assistant chief officer David McGown said: “While the overall downward trends are welcome, we are never complacent.”
The number of fires in homes continues to fall across Scotland, down to 5,541 in 2016/17 compared to 5,677, and the number of casualties as a result of fires has dropped from 1,276 last year to 1,189 in the current reporting period.
