What is the 112 pulse?
When someone calls 112 about a fire or an accident, the alarm centre sends out the municipal fire and rescue service. The alarm is registered in ODIN, the Danish Emergency Management Agency's system, and the agency shows the latest alarms for the whole country in “1-1-2 landsdækkende puls”. Each alarm lists the fire service, the responding station, the time and “første meldings ordlyd” – the type the alarm was given when it was sent.
That is the type you see in our list. It is a first estimate, not a conclusion: only afterwards does the fire service record in ODIN whether the alarm was real, blind or false, and what actually happened. The pulse shows neither an address nor an outcome.
The types explained
Each type has a main group and usually a subtype after the dash, such as “Bygn.brand-Villa/Rækkehus”. The groups follow the agency's own list of ODIN reports. In our English list the types are translated.
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Bygn.brand | Building fire. The subtype says which building: house or terraced house, flat, apartment building, industrial building, farm, shop, institution, holiday home or a detached outbuilding. |
| Skorst.brand | Chimney fire. The subtype gives the roof type: hard roof or thatched roof. |
| Naturbrand | Outdoor fire: a small fire, a field (harvested or not), a straw stack, forest or plantation. |
| Brand-… | Fire in a vehicle: car, lorry or bus, motorcycle or moped, farm machinery or ship. |
| Container, skraldespand | Fire in waste outdoors (container or rubbish bin). |
| FUH | Road traffic accident (færdselsuheld). “Fastklemte” means someone may be trapped in the vehicle. If it turns out nobody was trapped, the call-out often still counts as a real alarm, because there was an accident (according to the agency). |
| Redn. | Rescue of people, for example from heights, machinery, a silo or well, and drowning accidents at sea, in lakes, harbours and streams. |
| Min. forurening | Minor pollution: a spill of oil or chemicals – “v/FUH” means the spill happened at a road accident. Larger spills are “Str. forurening”. |
| Gas | A smell of gas or a broken gas pipe. Escaping flammable gas is registered as an imminent danger of fire. |
| EL-instal. | Fire in electrical installations, for example a transformer or fallen power lines. |
| ISL | Incident commander (indsatsleder): a request involving the fire service's duty incident commander. |
| Brandalarm | Fire alarm. Seen mostly from Hovedstadens Beredskab (Greater Copenhagen Fire Department), which has its own alarm centre and its own codes. Many fire alarms come from automatic systems, but the type alone doesn't say whether that is the case. |
Blind alarms
The agency distinguishes three kinds of alarm. A real alarm is a genuine incident – including a small fire that was out before the fire engine arrived. A blind alarm is raised by accident or in good faith, without any fire or danger. A false alarm is raised on purpose, for example when someone deliberately presses a fire alarm button at a school.
In 2025 the municipal fire services were called out 39,329 times: 18,180 were real alarms, 20,637 blind and 512 false. Most blind alarms – 17,995, or 87 per cent – came from automatic fire alarm systems (ABA), which many buildings must have and which alert the fire service directly. According to the agency's 2024 analysis, 92 per cent of all automatic alarms in 2023 were blind. The most common causes were cooking (35 per cent), building and repair work (21 per cent), smoking (9 per cent), pressing the wrong button (7 per cent), steam from showers (6 per cent) and dust (5 per cent). The owner of a mandatory system can be charged a fee when the system itself triggers a blind alarm – in February 2024 typically DKK 5,000–9,000, and often only for repeated alarms.
So when the list shows a fire, it isn't certain that anything burned. On average in 2025, 8 minutes and 12 seconds passed from the alarm centre raising the alarm until the first vehicle – apart from the incident commander's – arrived.
Who answers when you call 112?
112 calls are answered in three alarm centres: in Aarhus and Slagelse, run by the police, and in Copenhagen, run by Hovedstadens Beredskab. Your call goes to the first free operator anywhere in the country. For a fire, the operator passes the report to the fire service while you are talking. For illness or injury, a health professional joins the call, and urgent police matters go to the police's duty centre.
Call-outs in the last 30 days
These are the call-outs we have seen in the 112 pulse over the last 30 days – 614 in total, broken down by main group. The figures are updated every night and are our own count, not official statistics.
| Main group | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Building fire | 173 | 28% |
| Fire alarm | 97 | 16% |
| Fire | 71 | 12% |
| Minor pollution | 68 | 11% |
| Road traffic accident | 42 | 7% |
| Wildfire | 35 | 6% |
| Gas | 29 | 5% |
| Rescue | 26 | 4% |
| Rubbish bin fire | 21 | 3% |
| Container fire | 19 | 3% |
| Chimney fire | 14 | 2% |
| Electrical installation | 9 | 1% |
| Major pollution | 3 | 0% |
| Aircraft accident | 1 | 0% |
| Aircraft | 1 | 0% |
| Water rescue | 1 | 0% |
| Other | 4 | 1% |
How we show the call-outs
- The location is the responding fire station's town (≈) – not the scene itself. If the station isn't known, we show the fire service's area (◌).
- The pulse only shows the latest 20 alarms, and alarms can arrive late. When ODIN has an outage, call-outs may be missing.
- We fetch the pulse every 2 minutes and translate the code into plain English. Source: www.odin.dk/112puls.
See the call-outs now on the start page, or pick your municipality in the A–Å list.
Sources (in Danish)
- Danish Emergency Management Agency: list of ODIN parameters
- Blind, false and real alarms
- Redningsberedskabet i tal 2025
- Blind alarms from automatic systems (2024)
- Police: 112
Advarselslisten is not an authority. Always follow the authorities' instructions, and call 112 if life is at risk.