Fire Courses in Higher Education - Report Example

Fire Courses in Higher Education (Name) (Course) (Lecturer) (Date) Introduction With approximately 1000 line of duties and other thousands on injuries annually, half of this occurs on the sight of emergencies. Indeed, it is obvious that fire fighting in the United States continues to be a long a dangerous occupation. The huge number of deaths of the U.S firefighter that occurred during the attack on 9/11 brought greater attention to the fact that all firefighters that risk their lives on the line of duties to save the citizens deserve and need proper training and tools for the job. It is unfortunate that few fire departments do access essential modern equipment required for successful and safe emergency response. In fact, the fire fighters are trying to do a job that is demanded by new environment with dilapidated and old tools. Fatalities of fire fighters have been on the increase for the past five years. Numerous technological advancements have been observed in the aerospace and military industries. However, further adaptations, development and testing are necessary before they are implemented in the fire services and security organization. With this understanding, it is important to note that most higher education institutions are education and training on fir emergencies. Some have formed Center for Firefighter Safety Research and Development. These research centers mainly improve the safety of firefighters through development and research on on-scene accountability, firefighting equipment and communication systems (Seymor 2001). Maryland University- Department of Fire Courses on Fire Maryland University has a fire training academy. Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute is the primary education and training courses that include hazardous training, confined space training, fall protection, forcible entry training and hazardous material training. Other courses offered by the institute are Fire Protection Engineering Department (MFRI) and Kinesiology Department (FPED). The institute has formed a research center that support and develop research that will assist to reduce firefighter injuries and deaths. It also aims at providing crossover advancements and technology to the public safety agencies and the country’s law enforcement (Sactor 2002). Welsh, F 2003, Fire Protection Risk Education of Off-Campus Student Housing in College Park, Maryland (Research Paper) The purpose of the research paper was to determine whether a risk reduction plan would be excellent in order to improve life safety and fire protection in off-campus students. Evaluative and descriptive research methodologies were used in answering some questions. The author observes that many universities and colleges have experienced fatal fires that strike the bright future of many children. The author asserts that there are various factors that contribute to fire safety problems in on and off campus student housing. These include construction, few fire protection systems, occupant behavior, and lack of maintenance. He goes on to explain that lack of general understanding and appreciation by the owners of the property that fatal fires may occur to their property and may cause loss of lives (Briese, 2003). Essentially, based on the research, the author listed various recommendations that include; the college and the fire department to conduct all houses in accordance to the existing fire prevention code, the college in conjunction with fire departments and appropriate stakeholders to begin utilizing Risk Reduction Model in order to reduce cases of fires and all the stakeholders should work together in order to eliminate injuries and deaths caused by fires. Essentially, the research strongly indicated the need to inform the students and the main stakeholder on issues concerning fire in order to save life and properties (Malarkey 2003). Lund University-Sweden Courses on Fire The university provides courses related to fire through the Department of Fire Safety Engineering and System Safety. This department is responsible for the main courses of Risk Management and Safety Engineering and Fire Protection Engineering programme at the university. Still, Lund University is also involved in international master programme; the International Master of Fire Safety Engineering programme and Master of Disaster Management programme. The courses offered undergraduate for Bachelor of Science in Safety Engineering are Consequences Analysis, Emergency and Disaster Management, Fire chemistry and Explosions, Fire \Dynamics, Introduction to Fire and Risks, Fire Dynamics, Fire Safety Evaluation, Risk Based Land Use Planning and Risks Analysis Methods. Research in the department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety can be divided into two areas namely; Societal Systems Safety and Fire Safety Engineering (Lund University at http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/). Research in this area has been performed in the university for the last 50 years. The research is divided into segments depending on the angle of research. These segments are; fire development and it comprises heat release rate, ignition, and radiation, extinguishment and gas production. The market is the second approach that divides the first area into stakeholders or market areas. The research is divided in areas for instance transport, industrial research and application for authorities and transport (Fridolf et al., 2012). The effect of fire is categorized as the third category and depends on the studies of the effect of fires. The areas that appear on this category include people, equipment, construction, society, organization, economics and environment. The final approach in research is the technological areas that include measuring techniques, modeling, and risk analysis and fire investigations. It is important to note that at present the research is focused on fire risk analysis, behavior of human on fire and fire development modeling, industrial fire protection, extinguishing agents, extinguishing techniques, community emergency services and various designs that are related to fire technology (METRO 2011) Example of ongoing research project in Lund University; Safe Mullitbygg This research project is sponsored by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. It focuses on prevent of accidents and mitigation in large and multifunctional building. Indeed, multifunctional buildings are mainly characterized by several significant societal functional that are prone to accident or antagonistic act (Flanagan 2003). KESO Project It is a research project o evacuation safety in the Oresund region. The main purpose of this protect is to determine the most effective evacuation strategies that are necessary in complex constructions such as tall building and tunnels (Fridolf et al., 2011). METRO This is a research project on fire safety in underground rail transport systems (Kumm 2010). Reasons for Small Fire to become Large Fires The research above tends to investigate and development techniques to boost the knowledge on small fires become large in particular scenarios. The research project is mainly studying fires that occur in school, cable galleries, roof attic and nuclear power plant (Nilsson 2010). Arson fires in School The project aims at development of protective measures to reduce and prevent consequences of arson fires, it focuses on passive and active systems and the benefit or cost of the different solutions. PRISME- Fire safety in NPP It is an international project that is sponsored by OECD in which Sweden is a participator. The paper focuses on the full scale fire test for validation of software for heat transport and smoke and nuclear power plant scenarios. However, much focus is on the influence of ventilation on the development of fire and the influence of the development of fire on the ventilation (Drysdsale 2000). University of Central Lancashire Courses on Fire Fire investigation is said to be the analysis of incidents that are fire-related. In this university it is a high multi-disciplinary area. The university acknowledges is designed for that fire investigators require the knowledge of scene management, fire behavior, investigation skills and analytical chemistry. The university offers Fire Investigation course to those who may be employed or want to pursue a career in fire investigations, working in insurance companies, forensic scientist, fire and rescue services and crime scene investigators. This course covers fire science and fire behavior, analytical science and fire investigation. The students are equipped with research knowledge and skills of becoming an expert in the English Legal Systems. The course is offered as Master of Science Fire Scene Investigation. Fire engineering is another course offered by the university. This course is concerned with the application of fire science into the practical context. It involves knowledge and skills crossing the areas of physic of heat, fire chemistry, environmental impact, toxicity and biology, legislation and law, structures, risk management and design. The course is combined into a single disciplined that does meet the challenges faced by the industries. The course is designed in a way that allows the students to be leaders in backgrounds from civil engineering to fire services. The course includes study of fires in buildings, research method and engineering design projects. Ranges of optional include risk management, catastrophes and accidents, fire safety law, incident command, fire engineering solutions and computational fluid dynamics. Fire Engineering is another course offered by the university. The discipline overlaps other disciplines such as physics, materials, mathematics, psychology, computational engineering, law and sociology. Fire is studied mainly in the laboratory while in practical context in particularly buildings and built environment. The course has been developed in collaboration with some professional institutions and it is supported by the university research center. The research center provides explosions and combustion. Other related optional include Fire Safety by Design, Hazard Analysis and Quantification, Law related to the Environment, Energy, and Fire Safety. All courses are accompanied with practical that assist the students in gaining experience in these fields (uclan http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/courses/bsc_hons_fire_and_leadership_studies.php) The University of Central Lancashire has launched new programs for instance fire engineering with various partners the Gulf, Hong Kong and Russia. Some of the responsive programs include Bachelor of Science in Fire Engineering and at Masters Level. The courses are offered both part time and full time in Hong Kong with the City of University, Institution of Fire Engineers and Hong Kong Fire Services Department. The degrees do carry professional recognition from the United Kingdom. The modules are similar to those taught in United Kingdom ( Asian School of Communicaton, 2012). However, there are additional modules that are related to the prevailing conditions in Hong Kong. This assist in ensuring that there is consideration in employment opportunities and career promotion for the students from the programmes. Of importance is the establishment and maintenance between the UK university and the employer network in the foreigner country. As a result, there has been a creation of a network of Honorary Fellow that is likely to influence the next generation. Similarly, the university is offering in country programmes in Well Engineering in Oman, that is, the Sultanate of Oman and an a degree at the Masters Level in Gas and Oil Studies that started in 2009 in Russia through bridge funding. With the introduction of these programmes in other countries, knowledge and skills needed in fire studies will indeed results to exchange of knowledge on various issues that are related to fire fighting and investigations. This will indeed result to more research carried out in the university compared to previous years (Bengtsson, 2005). Higher education problems in term of fire education in UAE Higher education has continued to face various problems in the Arab countries. United Arabs Emirates is no exception of this. It is undisputable that the Arab world is experiencing a great revolution that calls for assessment (Matthews 2007). The numbers of higher education institutions have continued to increase in the recent years. As such, various courses have continued to be introduced in the curriculum ( National Wildfire Coordinating Group, 2000). Fire education courses are among the courses that have continued to be taught in various institutions. However, there are various problems that these courses face in the country (Salama 2012). Over politicization in the learning institutions has greatly affected the flow of education and decreased reformation and implementing of new strategies that are related to fire education. As much as the countries aims at ensuring that the country attain the best fire fighters in the world, many students have created a mentality that fire education is mainly reserved for the military and special defense commanders and staff who are trained for deployment of firefighting and rescue operations. . The need of fire higher education in UAE, Europe and the world In the recent years, there is increased focus on fire prevention in higher education. This is because there is an increased concern on the end goal of this education that include; elimination of catastrophic loss of property, life and natural resources. It is important to note that increase fuel load has made the recent wild land fires harder to control, threat to live and expense to suppress (Comeau 2003). As such, the improvement of fire education in higher education in UAE, Europe and the rest of the world come in handy (National wilfite Coordinating Group 2001). Still, the past suppression tactics have continued to be partly effective. This has resulted to a change in the prevention tactics and strategies to curb the fires. Indeed, it is obvious that people cannot continue to invest all the resources in fire suppression equipment, strategies and forces as such, it calls for reactive fire suppressions programs that should evolve into proactive fire control and management programs that will effectively utilize hazardous fuel reduction and fire prevention techniques that will not only reduce unwanted ignition of fires but also minimize personnel exposures and damage from wildfires (Comeau 2002). With this understanding, the significance of fire in higher education cannot be overemphasized. Programs that equip the students with basic knowledge and skills in preventing and eliminating unwanted fires should be established and maintained in colleges and universities worldwide. In addition, institutions should be encourage to carry out joint programs related such as exchange programs in order to share various issues that are related to fire. As seen earlier, such programs will increase the research that is still underway on fires. New strategies and techniques for fire prevention education may be used in particular situations to effectively lower or reduce the risks and damages from unwanted fires. Creating an effective wildfire prevention plan will call for reduction of old measures and introduction novel technology. Indeed, it will be critical to develop effective and efficient prevention programs and implementing them accordingly. As such, it may call for adult education too. It also may mean that there is a need to do more visible patrolling with fire eliminating personnel, providing training to non-fire personnel and maintaining excellent results for the preventive programs. Essentially, fire education in the higher education is necessary in order to equip the students and help them to develop the skills, abilities and knowledge that is requires for leadership in fire protection. It will offer an understanding of the interagency harmonization that is necessary for emergency management, fire prevention, arson investigation successful and safe fire incident command. The student will also acquire analytical approaches techniques to fire investigation and protection, disaster and defense planning, personnel management and hazardous material management. Essentially there is a need to introduce fire courses in higher education in order to equip the students with the needed fire fighting strategies References Bengtsson, G. (2005). Enclosure Fires. Swedish Rescue Services Agency , 1-12. Briese, G. (2003). Dormitory Safety. International Association of Fire Chiefs , 23. Comeau, E. (2002). Aftermath. Firewatch , p1. Comeau, E. (2003). Written testimony on the need for enhanced fire safety at off-campus housing. Maryland: College Park. Communicaton, A. S. (2012). Asian School Of Communication In partnership with UClAN. New Dehli: ASC. Drysdsale, D. (2000). An Introduction to Fire Dynamics. London: Wiley. Flanagan, J. (2003, February 20). City adds apartments to proposed sprinkler bill. The Diamondack , p. 1. Fridolf, K, Nilsson, D, & Frantzich, H 2012, Taking advantage of theories and models on human behaviour in the fire safety design of underground transportation systems. 5th International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security, New York City, USA. Fridolf, K., Nilsson, D, & Frantzich, H 2011, Fire Evacuation in Underground Transportation Systems: A Review of Accidents and Empirical Research. Fire Technology, Available online 5 March 2011 (in press). Group, N. W. (2000). Communicator's Guide for Wildland Fire Management:fire education, prevention and mitigation practices. Fire Prevention , 8-13. Group, N. W. (2001). Fire and Education. Fire Prevention , 1-15. Kumm, M 2010, METRO-project: Protecting transportation infrastructure. Eurotransport Digital News, 3, retreived from http://www.eurotransportmagazine.com/, 19 July 2010. Lund University at http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/ Malarkey, J. (2003, May 14). Council delays sprinkler ordinance decision again. The Diamondback , p. 1. Matthews, P. (2007, April 22). Second National Line-of-Duty Death Prevention Summit. FireHouse , pp. 22-24. METRO 2011, Presentations at the METRO seminar 2011 (pdf portfolio). Presentations at the METRO seminar in Arvika, Sweden, 13-14 September 2011. Nilsson, D 2010, METRO - A research project about fires and explosions in metro systems (underground). Presentation at the International Rail Accident Investigation Conference, 25 November 2010 Sactor, A. (2002). Fire inspection program for greek facilities at the University of Maryland College Park: A model of university and community cooperation. Maryland: University of Maryland, College Park, Departmental of Environmental Safety. Salama, S. (2012, November 23). UAE aims for world’s best emergency fire response. Gulf News , p. 1. Sardqvist, S 2001, Demand for Extinguishing Media in Manual Fire fighting. Lund University, Department of Fire Safety Engineering Seymor, L. (2001). Seton Hall soundsalarm on fire safety. Loyolan ,p 1. Uclan University http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/courses/bsc_hons_fire_and_leadership_studies.php Welsh, F 2003, Fire Protection Risk Education of Off-Campus Student Housing in College Park, Maryland Read More

It focuses on prevent of accidents and mitigation in large and multifunctional building. Indeed, multifunctional buildings are mainly characterized by several significant societal functional that are prone to accident or antagonistic act (Flanagan 2003). KESO Project It is a research project o evacuation safety in the Oresund region. The main purpose of this protect is to determine the most effective evacuation strategies that are necessary in complex constructions such as tall building and tunnels (Fridolf et al., 2011). METRO This is a research project on fire safety in underground rail transport systems (Kumm 2010).

Reasons for Small Fire to become Large Fires The research above tends to investigate and development techniques to boost the knowledge on small fires become large in particular scenarios. The research project is mainly studying fires that occur in school, cable galleries, roof attic and nuclear power plant (Nilsson 2010). Arson fires in School The project aims at development of protective measures to reduce and prevent consequences of arson fires, it focuses on passive and active systems and the benefit or cost of the different solutions.

PRISME- Fire safety in NPP It is an international project that is sponsored by OECD in which Sweden is a participator. The paper focuses on the full scale fire test for validation of software for heat transport and smoke and nuclear power plant scenarios. However, much focus is on the influence of ventilation on the development of fire and the influence of the development of fire on the ventilation (Drysdsale 2000). University of Central Lancashire Courses on Fire Fire investigation is said to be the analysis of incidents that are fire-related.

In this university it is a high multi-disciplinary area. The university acknowledges is designed for that fire investigators require the knowledge of scene management, fire behavior, investigation skills and analytical chemistry. The university offers Fire Investigation course to those who may be employed or want to pursue a career in fire investigations, working in insurance companies, forensic scientist, fire and rescue services and crime scene investigators. This course covers fire science and fire behavior, analytical science and fire investigation.

The students are equipped with research knowledge and skills of becoming an expert in the English Legal Systems. The course is offered as Master of Science Fire Scene Investigation. Fire engineering is another course offered by the university. This course is concerned with the application of fire science into the practical context. It involves knowledge and skills crossing the areas of physic of heat, fire chemistry, environmental impact, toxicity and biology, legislation and law, structures, risk management and design.

The course is combined into a single disciplined that does meet the challenges faced by the industries. The course is designed in a way that allows the students to be leaders in backgrounds from civil engineering to fire services. The course includes study of fires in buildings, research method and engineering design projects. Ranges of optional include risk management, catastrophes and accidents, fire safety law, incident command, fire engineering solutions and computational fluid dynamics. Fire Engineering is another course offered by the university.

The discipline overlaps other disciplines such as physics, materials, mathematics, psychology, computational engineering, law and sociology. Fire is studied mainly in the laboratory while in practical context in particularly buildings and built environment. The course has been developed in collaboration with some professional institutions and it is supported by the university research center. The research center provides explosions and combustion. Other related optional include Fire Safety by Design, Hazard Analysis and Quantification, Law related to the Environment, Energy, and Fire Safety.

All courses are accompanied with practical that assist the students in gaining experience in these fields (uclan http://www.uclan.ac.

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