Firefighter incidents involving the obese rise by a third

Some of the rescues involved removing walls or windows, or the use of special lifting equipment such as slings and winches.

In one case, the Daily Telegraph reports, "a 40-stone man had to be carried from the upstairs of a pub".

The National Obesity Forum, which monitors the nation's expanding waistline, says the increase is not due to more people becoming overweight but a tendency for the already obese to become bigger.

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"This is not about more people being obese," spokesman Tam Fry told the BBC. "This is about those who are already obese now getting to a size where they now need assistance."

Chris Jones, from the South Wales Fire Service, which recorded the highest number of bariatric rescues in the country, described the potentially complex processes involved in rescuing a stranded obese person.

"If we are doing what we call an external rescue, where we are taking the patient out through a window, quite commonly we will remove the window frame itself and we will actually drop courses of brickwork down to create that space," he told the Telegraph.

"Internally we might have to take doors off, move furniture, we may even have to put supporting systems into the house to make sure everything is structurally sound as well."

Firefighters also reported call-outs to help transport the body of a deceased overweight person into an undertaker's vehicle.

Infographic by www.statista.com for TheWeek.co.uk.