Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) were called to a domestic property fire caused by unattended cooking in the early hours of the morning, following a neighbour’s emergency call. Upon arrival, the smoke alarms were sounding, dense smoke could be seen through the windows and there was no response from inside the property. Forced entry was gained by crews and two small children, one baby and an adult female (who was awake but unresponsive to the fire) were located inside. All were evacuated.
This incident resulted in crews having concerns for the adult female’s ability to care for and protect the children due to potential poor mental health or being under the influence of substances and/or alcohol. A male introduced himself to crews as the father of the three children. As crews had no way of confirming this, and due to the neighbours highlighting concerns of a domestic incident at the address earlier that evening, the crews contacted partner agencies for assistance. All three children and the female adult were taken to hospital.
The Operational Incident Commander (OIC) reported the fire incident as a safeguarding concern via Fire Control, resulting in the details being submitted to Children’s Services immediately. The safeguarding concerns referral was allocated the next working day to the Local HIWFRS Community Safety Officer (CSO).
Discussions between Children’s Services and the CSO identified that Children’s Services were making enquiries regarding the concerns reported by HIWFRS and concerns from other agencies – Our continued involvement to support those enquiries was requested.
The CSO attended two multi-agency child protection meetings where the situation was discussed and support levels were put in place for the family. The fire incident and the concerns identified by HIWFRS were a key part of the situation, so it was vital that we shared information about this and we were involved in the multi-agency discussions to support keeping the whole family safe.
The child protection meetings resulted in intervention and support from Children’s Services being put in place for the whole family, and certain actions were required of the adult female to keep the children safe. If those actions were not taken Children’s Services would be seeking emergency protection proceedings for the children to ensure their safety. The local CSO also visited the family at their temporary address to complete a post incident home fire safety (Safe and Well) visit.
