Of all the occasions where the fire service intervened, 4,287 were fires and explosions, accounting for 21.81% of all service and with nine people losing their lives. In terms of rescue procedures, the figure of 6,445 represents 32.79% of all service provided. Of these cases, 5,460 rescue operations were to help people in their homes.

In a bid to prioritise prevention and emergency responses to guarantee a safe city, work is being carried out to develop a series of actions from this year on which will help anticipate and minimise incidents, and to minimise the consequences should they occur:

• Promotion of research and development (R+D) in fire prevention through collaboration and knowledge transfer with leading experts, collaboration agreements for research and development on strategic projects with participation in forums and other sectoral bodies. In addition, testing with materials, equipment and fire protection systems.
• Promotion of fire investigations to discover sequences and chains of events. A unit will be created to analyse, research and investigate incidents, to carry out post-incident investigations for all fire services with victims or serious damage to buildings and to work directly with police corps.
• Promotion of the Espai Bombers as a leading centre for the transfer of knowledge, prevention and dissemination.
• Promotion of dissemination of fire prevention, driven by the museum space at the Espai Prevenció.

In this respect, the campaign “Prevention is better than extinction” is running from February to April and offers a series of talks on preventing fires in the home. The sessions include practical recommendations on fire prevention at home and advice on what to do if a fire starts.

November also saw the Pre-Venim vehicle come into service at schools, a new mobile unit to teach children and young people about fire prevention and self-protection measures.