Firefighters battled 14% more blazes in the last year, according to figures.
In the year to June fire and rescue services attended 573,221 incidents, up 2% on the previous period.
Of these, 182,491 were fires compared to 160,408 the previous year.
The rise was due to a high number of small outdoor fires which did not involve people or buildings during the hot, dry 2018 summer, according to Home Office figures.
Fires accounted for 32% of all call-outs attended, 40% were false alarms after reports of a fire and 28% were other incidents like car crashes, floods and medical emergencies.
Last month separate figures showed the number of full-time firefighters had fallen by 23% in a decade.
There were 32,233 staff employed by fire and rescue services as firefighters in England at the end of March.
In 2018 there were 32,245 but five years ago, in 2014, there were 37,170 and 41,953 in 2009, figures from the Home Office showed.
This is around 9,700 fewer firefighters - counting those who were working full-time and on-call up to the end of March this year - compared with 2009.
