By James M. Kudla
System Planning Corporation/TriData
Full coverage of Fire Prevention Week
 Photo David Hone A London firefighter helps to promote smoke alarms during a music festival in Finsbury Park. |
Fire Prevention Week is a good time to remember that in the United States and in most western industrial nations, the majority of civilian fire deaths and injuries occur in the home. It means it’s a great time to focus on how we can achieve greater prevention and fewer casualties.
An ongoing series of studies sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), undertaken in partnership with us, has found that innovative fire prevention programs in seven European and Pacific Rim nations can help point the way to lower death and injury rates here in the United States.
The international study series is part of the CDC’s efforts for reducing residential fire injuries. The research was sponsored by the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program of the U.S. Fire Administration and FEMA.
The first study, completed in 2007, focused on best practices in England, Scotland, Sweden and Norway. It found that one approach to fire prevention stood out as the best of any found to date. To reduce fire casualties in the home, the fire service in the UK visits large numbers of high-risk households to conduct fire safety inspections and risk reductions, especially to ensure the homes have a working smoke detector.
This one prevention effort, though it required a major change in the culture and mission of the UK fire service, is credited as being a major factor in the 40 percent drop in fire deaths and injuries it has seen over the past 15 years.
Additional efforts in the UK, as well as similar prevention practices in Sweden and Norway, include:
- Use of risk analysis software
- Making prevention a line service
- Increasing hours devoted to prevention
- Aggressive public safety media campaigns
- Special programs targeting the young and the elderly populations
These measures have been coupled with safer products for homes, which include:
- 10 year tamper-proof, battery-powered smoke alarms available for purchase by the public (some being installed by the fire service in high-risk homes)
- Flame and cigarette-resistant fabrics and upholstery used for furniture and bedding (required by UK national law)
- Portable home sprinkler systems available for especially high-risk households
- Hard-wired smoke alarms now required for all new residential premises (and in all major refurbishments)
All of these measures have contributed to a significant drop in the residential fire death rate, from 9.7 deaths per million population in 1990 to 5.7 deaths per million in 2005-2006.
The second study, completed in August this year, examined successful practices in community fire safety from Australia, New Zealand and Japan, where all three countries have well-developed national fire prevention programs. Japan itself perhaps has the most extensive public fire safety education programs among developed nations. It has increasingly tied fire safety education to disaster education and training, because earthquakes — a high public concern — often lead to many fires.
In Australia and New Zealand, as in the UK and most nations visited in this research, fire prevention programs are delivered largely by line firefighters trained in conducting specific programs. Prevention efforts are targeted to high risk groups that are identified from geographic information systems (GIS) analysis of fire experience and socioeconomic data.
The Pacific Rim report outlines innovative approaches in creating communication and fostering ties between each country’s fire service and targeted community groups including school-aged children, people with disabilities and the elderly. All three countries also specially target immigrant and minority communities. In Tokyo, fire service officials have a goal of visiting all households at least every five years. Japan’s major fire departments run large fire and disaster training centers equipped to conduct practical, hands-on training for earthquakes and associated fires.
Both reports provide state and local fire and emergency management officials a benchmark against which to measure their own programs and ideas on how to innovatively improve them. In a larger context, the CDC is hoping to stimulate a national discussion of ways these international lifesaving efforts can be adapted and used in the United States.
A third study is now being planned for publication in 2009. All three studies build on work done previously by TriData from 1982-1993, when we produced a series of reports entitled “International Concepts in Fire Protection.”
Check out the reports on Global Concepts In Residential Fire Safety
James Kudla is vice president for communications and information solutions at System Planning Corporation (SPC). He works closely in communicating with the press with SPC’s TriData division, a nationally-recognized fire and emergency management consulting firm in Arlington, Va. In 2007 he served as spokesman for TriData’s efforts in support of the Virginia Tech Review Panel. Mr. Kudla is a certified EMT-B who volunteers with the Orlean, Va., Volunteer Fire & Rescue Department.