EXTRA funding has led to a dramatic county-wide reduction in arson, fire chiefs said last Monday.

Deliberate fires in North Yorkshire dropped by 8.9 per cent in the 12 months up to April this year, compared to the previous year.

The reduction comes after the government gave £30,000 to the county's fire service to set-up an arson task force.

Mick Brighton, North Yorkshire arson task force manager, said the task force had used a number of techniques to tackle deliberate fires and hoax calls.

Fire fighters have been given extra training and visits have been paid to primary and secondary schools, as well as science and careers fairs.

Youth intervention programmes have been set up where fire fighters meet young fire-starters to talk about the consequences of their actions and why they felt the need to start fires. More than 100 youngsters have been seen so far.

The fire service is also advising local authorities on the disposal of abandoned cars, fly-tipping and derelict buildings in order to remove possible arson targets.

Young fire fighters' schemes have been set up in the south of the county, and two more are being planned for Bedale and Northallerton.

Mr Brighton said: "We have used a very broad brush approach to arson. We haven't concentrated on one particular aspect, we have just blitzed them all.

"The benefits to the community are that there are now less car fires, less house fires and less supermarkets burning down.

"Four years ago we did not concentrate on arson, but now we seem to have hit the right note and hopefully we will see this downward trend continuing."

The success of the North Yorkshire arson task force was highlighted in a Government report released last week. It showed that there were about 950 arson attacks in North Yorkshire in 2002/03. In 2003/04 this figure was down to about 860.

Mr Brighton is looking for North Yorkshire businesses to help to fund the youth intervention programme. For details, call him on (01609) 788546.