Almost 300 deliberate fires recorded across Kirkcaldy last year
Almost 300 deliberate fires were recorded across the Kirkcaldy area in the last year, figures have revealed.
The statistics from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service were considered by members of Fife Council’s Kirkcaldy Area Committee on Tuesday.
They showed that there were a total of 287 deliberate fires and Kirkcaldy Station Commander Niall Miller revealed that the majority took place towards the beginning of the year.
“Seventy per cent of these occurred in the first two to four months of this reporting period. It was a trend we saw over multiple areas of Fife,” he said.
“The watches in Kirkcaldy carried out talks in the education sector. We also have been working with Safer Communities, Police Scotland and other local groups to quickly identify any trends and we have been collaboratively working to try and effect positive change.
“There was a bit of social media interest in fires at the start of this reporting period. It is not possible to draw a direct link between the two however these things did exist at the same time and we then saw a drop off in the interest.”
Kirkcaldy East recorded by far the highest number of deliberate fires, with 133, while there were 53 each in Kirkcaldy Central and Kirkcaldy North and 48 in Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy.
Grassland, woodland and crop fires accounted for 112 incidents, while another 109 involved refuse.
Committee convener, Councillor Ian Cameron, was concerned about figures for his ward.
“Kirkcaldy East seems to be a difficult ward in terms of deliberate fires. Are there repeat offenders here? What is the real issue?” he said.
Station Commander Miller was unable to give a precise explanation.
“The unfortunate part of it from our side of things is we tend to attend these incidents when offenders have left the scene so we are unable to identify, for the vast majority of instances, who caused these fires,” he said.
“When our crews return from deliberate fires, we will pass on as much operational intelligence to Police Scotland but usually when we attend, the individuals will have long since disappeared so it makes it challenging for us.
“We are more than willing to work with Police Scotland to try and identify these youths and, where we can, educate them on the ramifications of what they are doing and the impact on local communities.”
The figures for 2025/26 showed there were 56 accidental dwelling fires with 25 in the Kirkcaldy East ward, 14 in the Kirkcaldy Central ward, nine in the Burntisland, Kinghorn & Western Kirkcaldy ward, and eight in the Kirkcaldy North ward.
There were two fatalities and six casualties from accidental house fires.