Incidents at places of worship
Case reference FOI2026/00236
Received 28 February 2026
Published 3 March 2026
Request
1. The number of incidents attended at church or other religious building locations since 1 January 2018, broken down by year and by incident type (e.g., accidental fire, deliberate fire, false alarm).
2. Confirmation of whether your incident recording system has a specific location type field for religious sites (church, mosque, synagogue, temple, etc.).
3. Copies of any guidance or policy documents used by your service regarding the recording of incidents at places of worship.
Response
Please see my response to each of your requests in turn below:
1. The number of incidents attended at church or other religious building locations since 1 January 2018, broken down by year and by incident type (e.g., accidental fire, deliberate fire, false alarm).
This information is published on the London Datastore and can be accessed using the following link:
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/london-fire-brigade-incident-records-em8xy
If you download the 'LFB Incident data from 2024 onwards.xlsx' and 'LFB Incident Data from 2018 - 2023' files, you can filter by 'PropertyCategory' and 'PropertyType' to locate the information you require. Please see the response to Q2 below for more information on these.
2. Confirmation of whether your incident recording system has a specific location type field for religious sites (church, mosque, synagogue, temple, etc.).
Yes, in line with the Home Office incident recording system guidance LFB record the following property category, and types, for religious use buildings:
|
PropertyCategory |
PropertyType |
|---|---|
|
Non-Residental |
Cathedral Church/Chapel Mosque Other Religious Use Building Synagogue Temple |
|
Other Residential |
Monastery/Convent |
3. Copies of any guidance or policy documents used by your service regarding the recording of incidents at places of worship.
LFB follow the Home Office guidance for recording of property categorises and property types on our Incident Recording System (known as the Incident Management System). The Home Office publish detailed guidance on their website which can be accessed using the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-statistics-guidance
Documents
This is London Fire Brigade's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.