Other events in Baltic States

The number of fires recorded in Latvia dropped last year as the trend continued for the fourth consecutive year already, the State Fire and Rescue Service’s deputy chief Kristaps Eklons said in an interview with Latvian Television today, cites LETA.

The annual number of fires in Latvia has been dropping by 500 to 600 in recent years. The number of fire fatalities, meanwhile, has decreased over the past seven years from 150 to 82 people in 2016, Eklons said, adding that last year’s statistics might be even lower as some of the people who died in fires last year might have been victims of crime.

The representative of the fire service believes that the improved fire statistics correlates with increased public awareness of fire safety rules.

Eklons noted that the houses where the 82 fire victims died last year had been without smoke detectors and about a third of the fire victims were more than 60 years old. Also, at least a third of the fire victims were either homeless or poor people to whom “safety is not a priority”.

At least 35 people lost their lives in fires caused by reckless smoking, Eklons said.