Growth in expenses for fire and accident protection in municipalities

The 5.6 billion spent on fire and accident protection, represents about an 8 per cent increase from 2015. Moreover, over the last years from 2012 to 2016, the expenditure has increased by 27 per cent. About 67 per cent of the expenditure is wage costs for personnel.

The expenditure of fire and accident protection represents about 1.5 percent of the total expenditure of Norwegian municipalities.

Preparedness accounts for the largest part of the expenses

The major item of expenditure within fire and accident protection is preparedness for fires and other accidents. Among other things, this includes operating expenditure for fire fighting services and emergency systems to combat oil pollution. In 2016, the expenditure for this item totalled about NOK 4.5 billion, which is an increase of 8 per cent from 2015 and about 28 per cent from 2012.

The municipal expenditures on prevention of fires and other accidents are significantly lower than those within preparedness. In 2016, the municipalities spent approximately NOK 1,1 billion on prevention in the form of chimney sweeping and other actions to prevent fires and explosive accidents. The expenditures for prevention of fires and other accidents is about 20 per cent of the total expenditure on fire and accident protection in municipalities.

Over 3 000 registered building fires

One of the main tasks of the fire service is fire-fighting. In 2016 there were a total of 3 009 building fires registered, where house fires (as in people’s homes) made up 61 per cent of these. A fire is defined in the statistics by where it starts. This means that even though there are many houses included in a fire, it will only be counted as one fire as long as it started in one place.