Emergencies dealt with by the county's fire brigade have dropped substantially.

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service was called to deal with 9,700 incidents, ranging from blazes to false alarms, in six months.

That is a drop of more than 500 on the calls dealt with in the same period in the previous year. There was also a drop in the number of fires in the county.

There were 3,185 blazes, excluding chimney fires, a decrease of almost 250. But the number of chimney fires dealt with has gone up despite warnings for people to clean them properly before lighting them.

The number of hoax calls, which had been rising in recent years and stretching the service to the limit in some areas, also dropped.

But the biggest increase was in faulty fire alarms going off, especially at business premises.

Fire chiefs have already expressed concern over this trend but moves to invoice companies for these sorts of call outs have been vetoed by the Government.

Instead fire officers have been making sure companies get advice to cut down on these incidents.

The figures were included in the half yearly report by Chief Fire Officer David Turner and measured calls received by the service between October 1, 1998 and March 31, 1999.

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