About Fire Radar

Fire Radar is an independent project with a simple aim: to make publicly available information about fire incidents easier for people to find and understand in one place. Fire and rescue services across the UK publish valuable incident information, but it is spread across many different websites and presented in many different formats. Fire Radar brings those public sources together on a common map so that people can get a clearer view of what is happening without first needing to know which local service website to search.

The project is intended to be useful for the common good. Someone may want to understand a fire they can see in the distance, check an incident near relatives or friends, see what has recently happened in an area, or simply understand where significant fire activity is being reported. Fire Radar aims to make that information more accessible while always preserving a clear route back to the original fire and rescue service source.

Fire Radar does not replace the emergency services and it is not an emergency warning or dispatch system. Coverage depends on what each fire and rescue service chooses to publish publicly, so the absence of a marker does not prove that no fire is taking place. Locations can sometimes be approximate, publication can be delayed or selective, and Fire Radar may infer simple information such as incident category or status when an authority does not publish it explicitly. The site is designed to show those limitations openly. If there is an emergency, always call 999 and follow instructions from the emergency services and other official authorities.

This is an early release and there is much more to come. The ambition is to improve the quality, reliability and geographic reach of Fire Radar over time, add more UK fire and rescue service areas where dependable public data is available, and keep refining how incidents are checked, classified and mapped. The guiding principle is simple: useful information is only valuable when people can trust what it says and understand its limitations.

Ross Miller