EXFIRE

20 Feb 2012

Unemployed people in a part of north London are to attend a firefighting course in a scheme set up in response to last summer's riots.

A man has escaped injury after an arson attack at his home in Comber, County Down.

Concerns about safety, training and organisational failings at a fire service have been raised in a chief officer's letter seen by BBC Scotland.

A former coaching inn has been damaged in a fire in Devon.

Three men have been taken to hospital after an underground petrol store exploded in a Barnsley garage.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder following a fire at a flat in Wiltshire.

A van driver has died after a crash on the A944 west of Aberdeen.

A 64-year-old woman has been taken to hospital after a fire at a sheltered housing complex in Edinburgh.

21 Feb 2012

An Oxfordshire cricket pavilion has been destroyed in a suspected arson attack.

An explosion at a major steel factory in north-eastern China has killed 13 people and injured another 17, a company official said.

A 15-month-old girl has been taken to hospital as a precaution after a fire at a block of flats in Edinburgh.

More than half of all house fires in north Wales start in the kitchen, according to the fire service.

22 Feb 2012

A number of residents had to be moved from their homes after an oil tank was set on fire in Bangor.

Six people have been injured in a blast at a West Yorkshire biscuit factory.

The fire service in Essex has said it had to pay more than £119,000 to HM Revenue and Customs after it underpaid national insurance contributions.

Thirty homes were evacuated as firefighters tackled a blaze overnight at a derelict warehouse in Gloucester.

Single forces for Scotland's police and fire services are expected to begin operating on 1 April next year.