Fire crews are working with the police and youth action teams in a bid to stop a rising number of fires being set around parts of Livingston.
Firefighters attended 32 deliberate blazes in southern Livingston in just three months over the summer.
Station commander, Lynne Gow, told a meeting of Livingston South local area committee that 17 of those were in the Inveralmond and Scott Brae areas.
Commander Gow said: “This is an area of focus nationally as well as locally, and something we are constantly addressing. We have had crews visiting the area to offer reassurance and we are working with the police and Youth Action Project. There’s other messaging to do with wheelie bins being stored properly.
"We have our own community action team working to engage with youths. It’s about getting into schools and engaging directly with young people to educate them into the consequences of fire.
"Unfortunately we have not been able to get into schools and that is something that is only now just starting up again.”
Wheelie bins are a favourite target, and since a spate of bins fires two summers ago, local SFRS community officers have been working with council staff and police to warn of the potential danger in setting bins alight.
Fire officers have reported big increase in refuse and grassland blazes started deliberately throughout the summer months across the county with a similar number of deliberate fires in the Whitburn and Blackburn ward.
Mary Benson, the chair of Ladywell community council said: “It’s totally unacceptable that we have 17 fires in Inveralmond, where we have a high school and primary schools.”
She offered to work with the SFRS to put out safety messages in the community.
Of the 32 deliberate fires in the ward between July and the end of September, two were cars, five were wheelie bins and the rest grassland or domestic refuse.
In the Inveralmond blazes, most of the fires were in refuse, either domestic or taken from school premises. Last year, there were 21 fires during the same period.
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