Social media blamed for ‘significant’ rise in deliberate fires in part of Fife

Members of Fife Council’s City of Dunfermline Area Committee were told of current anti-social behaviour challenges facing both police and fire services in the city at its meeting on Tuesday.

Craig Robertson, Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (SFRS) station commander for Clackmannanshire, Fife and Stirling, revealed a “significant increase” in deliberate fires in the area from 124 to 181 in the last 12 months.

“Looking forward to next year’s report, I can see that is increasing again,” he said. “It was a new one to me that certain social media platforms are getting used to encourage this behaviour.

“We are working very closely with safer communities and Police Scotland. We have put a plan in place where community action team and operational staff continue to engage with nurseries, primary and secondary schools to try and get on top of this problem.”

Police Scotland Inspector, Conrad Musgrave, said an-tisocial behaviour was a “particularly difficult area” because of its sporadic nature.

“When hotspots are identified, we try and tackle with extra patrols,” he said.

“Antisocial behaviour calls have increased by some four per cent over that period so it is an area that still needs to be pushed on by us.

“A lot of fire-raising was something of particular concern to us especially with social media where people encourage each other to one up themselves which is something we had not seen before.”

Committee convener, councillor James Calder, was concerned about the rising number of incidents.

“There is a wider issue at play there and hopefully we can all work together because this is stuff that is very worrying for local communities,” he added. “Tackling anti-social behaviour is a key priority for our communities.”