The Effect of Globalization on the Legislative and Substantive Work of the Fire and Rescue Services - Report Example

Introduction Accidents and disasters do happen at any time in any part of the world without any warning. When such incidences occur, there is need for immediate deployment of professional teams who undertake effective search and rescue operations. The UK international search and rescue team is one of the professional teams registered with the United Nations to provide such services. It has effectively carried out the search, rescue and relief operations in the world over the past. I will introduce this report by first discussing the structure and operations of the UK international search and rescue team so that we get an overview of how our brigade should work when it joins the team. It analyses how our fire authority would upshot its services legally ethically and globally. We will assess the laws as per the Fire and Rescue Services Act of 2004 which concerns with the various functions of the fire and rescue authorities in promoting fire safety, fire fighting services, responding to road traffic accidents as well as other emergencies that may arise. The paper analyses the effect of globalization on the legislative and substantive work of the fire and rescue services, and the personnel involved. Ethical issues considered in dealing with fire and rescue services, as well as the role of practitioners in the changing world environment are also discussed. According to the UK web resource (2009), the UK international search and rescue team has rescue specialists who are available at any time for deployment to overseas in rescuing and assisting the affected population during a disaster. It also has specific groups who provide logistical, command and medical support so as to ensure that their team is self sufficient in dealing with diverse situations. It comprises of various brigades with well trained and equipped fire fighters. The search and rescue team is coordinated by the Fire Service Inspectorate and operates within the UK’s Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This is a registered Team in the United Nations as a source of search and rescue resources which is available for deployment at any time. The deployment of this team follows a request at the governmental level since it is an official search and rescue team of the UK government. This request must be made by the government of the affected country or the UN representative of the country. The Department for International development receives and approves the request for assistance. Once approved, the team is organized, mobilized and coordinated for their preparation to offer their services. A steering group is then sent to assess the community needs in order to determine the number of personnel and amount of resources. This helps in avoiding waste of resources and unnecessary deployment. It has been realized that the UK search and rescue team has been taking imperative and quick response in taking effective action when a disaster has occurred. It has consistently and reliably deployed its staff within few hours to any place of the disaster all over the world and brought effective resources into use. Our brigade should therefore, be in a position of relieving distress and suffering among the peoples affected by risks, hazards, emergencies and disasters in the UK and across the world. We should cross train our members in advanced and specialist subjects so as to develop a strong base of emergency response as the UK international search and rescue team (UK web resource 2009). Globalization has occurred in the world over the past. This has been manifested though economic political, military, cultural, technological as well as humanitarian developments. The humanitarian developments include the integration of various countries all over the world and their cooperation in order to solve issues of global concern. This has been achieved by the establishment of the United Nation with the aim of conserving the environment, dealing with conflicts between nations and offering assistance when disasters arise. With regard to disaster management, the United Nation plays a major role of rescuing and offering relief to the affected population. Besides, they have international search and rescue teams who are involved with such functions. For instance, the UN played a major role in the search and rescue of the victims of Haiti earthquake. This disaster caused around 100,000 deaths including 200 UN workers. The UN called for search and rescue teams to offer humanitarian assistance in food, shelter and sanitation. This humanitarian relief was supported by donations from various nations and well wishers. They worked together with other fire fighters all over Britain in saving people’s lives. The photograph below shows some of the UK international search and rescue team in preparation to rescue the victims of Haiti earthquake. Fig 1. Some members of the UK International search and rescue Team Fig 2. A member of the UK international search and rescue Team attending to a patient Adopted from http://www.ertsarhq.webs.com/ The UK international search and rescue team as well as other search and rescue teams offer their services by following the “Fire and Rescue Services Act of 2004”. The act highlights and discusses various functions of the fire and rescue teams such as fire safety, fire-fighting services, response to road traffic accidents and other emergencies. The act also provides guidelines which must be used by the teams in effective these functions. The first and main purpose for the fire and rescue authorities is to ensure there is fire safety in its area. In effecting this function, the fire and rescue authorities should provide information on the steps that should be taken in preventing fires and injury or death by the fires. Secondly, it should give advice, upon request, ways of preventing fires and their spread, and means of escaping from buildings and properties when fire occurs. Considering their second function of fire-fighting, the fire and rescue authorities must consider their purpose of protecting life and property hence the need for extinguishing fires in places that they occur. In making provision for the above, they should ensure that they have adequate trained personnel, equipment for the effective execution of the services. Besides, they should make arrangements for effective communication among the parties when a disaster has occurred, and ensure that reasonable steps are followed in limiting damage to property when fighting the fires. Fire and rescue authorities need to make a provision of rescuing those who are involved in road traffic accidents, and protecting the public from such harms to a reasonable extent. To be more specific, they should equip themselves with necessary equipment and adequate trained personnel that provide this service. Our brigade must therefore be able to follow the set international laws and established practices when deploying to help and rescue others in disasters and emergencies or when preparing for an imminent risks or hazards. We should have a vision of having a more secure and safer world which is prepared against any disaster or emergency. We should understand our role of offering emergency support services and provision of disaster risk reduction strategies. Other than dealing with fire disasters, the Fire and Rescue Services Act of 2004 allows the teams to assist in offering rescue services for other emergencies. This should be conferred by the order from the Secretary of state by which the fire and rescue authority should discharge services outside their authority. It requires that the Secretary of State consult the appropriate persons and offer them with appropriate equipment. The personnel should therefore be offered training opportunities on how to effectively use the equipment. Other functions include the directions by the Secretary of State to either take or not to take a specified function to an emergency or fire specified in a given direction. However, a direction in this section requires that the authorities to act outside their area. These directions may also vary or be revoked by another direction. In addition to the above discussed functions, the fire and rescue authorities are given the power to take any action which it considers appropriate in responding to other eventualities such as a situation or event which is likely to cause death or injury harm the environment. Also they have the power to secure the provision of the necessary equipment and to exercise such powers outside or within the authority’s area. UNEP is among the practitioners have been involved in the development of Disasters and Conflicts programme which deals with minimization of environmental threats as a result of the consequences as well as the causes of disasters and conflicts. These tragic events cause population displacement, destruction of infrastructure, undermines human security and create poverty which tears apart the society’s sustainable development. UNEP’s core services through the conflict and disaster management include post-crisis environmental analysis, post-crisis environmental recovery, environmental cooperation for peace building, and disaster risk reduction. The management conducts an environmental assessment on the impacts on human health, security and livelihoods created by different crises. It coordinates and mobilizes international emergency responses to act with an aim of integrating environmental needs. Their second function of environmental recovery concerns with helping national governments involved to address the identified environmental priorities and needs. These programmes can, however, last for a long period with an aim of strengthening the authorities, mitigating risks, rehabilitating ecosystems and ensuring that resources are used sustainably. The third function of Environmental cooperation for peace building is concerned with the transformation of “the risk of conflicts over resources into opportunities for peace in war-torn societies, and to integrate environment and natural resources issues within the peace building policies and strategies of the UN.” Finally, they reduce disaster risks to protect lives from natural hazards and support the people’s livelihoods. They provide crucial information on risk reduction in vulnerable and social instability regions. We have established a disaster management system that deals with emergency planning issues with the mandate of covering disaster response, including preparedness, mitigation response, prevention and recovery. Besides, we have sub-committees which are responsible for defining our policies, ensuring that the procedures and plans are followed and regularly updated, reviewing and adopting different methodologies for the risk management. We should undertake strategic as well as operational planning exercises in relation to disaster management. Our national disaster plan comprehensively enables us in setting out mitigation, response and recovery procedures in dealing with various hazards, both man-induced and natural. Other functional plans include those involved in communications, pandemics, etc. We use the following strategies in promoting preparedness, mitigation and prevention. The purpose of mitigation strategies is to promote risk and hazard mapping in physical planning and national development. The creation of an effective communication procedure will enhance the establishment of a radio telecommunications system for emergencies. Our preparedness program maintains national emergency stores with supplies such as lighting, tents, and water containers. The program involves the training of the personnel in search and rescue techniques. Considering the public awareness programs, we educate the public on the major hazards that affect the nation by staging seminars and workshops and making interventions in schools, training community groups and assisting various organizations to develop disaster plans. We have national forecasting, warning and alerting systems whose aim is to predict the impact of a given hazard and warn the public in advance in the efforts of saving lives and reducing property damage. Once we detect a threat, we have the responsibility of informing other national response teams and advising the public of the threat so that they take measures to safeguard their lives and property (Smith 2007). The national warning and safety alerting mechanism of the search and rescue teams should ensure timely relaying of the warnings and alerts. In addition, the public should be informed about the precautionary measures. Each team is required to set out its roles, procedures and responses that it should take in response to national emergencies and threats. There should also be coordination among the search and rescue teams from the headquarters. In dealing with disasters, it is crucial to include emergency managers and representatives from police, fire, health, transport, public works and NGOs. According to Smith (2007), once an agency detects a threat, the officials of that agency adjust the composition of the team to deal with that particular threat. Among the pre-impact measures taken by the search and rescue teams are alerting of the community and other national response teams, issuing precautionary advice and warnings for the nation, establishing shelter and supplying with the necessary equipment. During the impact, there is coordination of the rescue and those affected are provided with medical assistance. Meanwhile, the nation is updated on the progress of the rescue. The Post-impact activities include the impact assessment as well as creation of national needs list. The team also coordinates the rehabilitation, manages shelters as well as the displaced population outside the shelters. The ongoing impact and damage assessment, international assistance and needs assessments are also coordinated. Finally, they are involved in issuing regular updates via media and websites concerning the international assistance. This leads to another important function carried out by the international rescue teams which is the coordination of relief. This is done by following a well developed Welfare and Relief Policy and Plan which helps in the distribution of the reliefs accountably and with transparency. This is done at local levels in order to avoid distribution overlap on the affected population. The activities involved in the relief management include the signing for the received relief. Different stakeholders who are involved are integrated into the relief system so as to increase efficiency and add to the level of transparency in the relief operations. The relief can include economic support (food, school books, seeds, etc.) for the affected population. The international community is also coordinated and involved in the national disaster plan since they are the major donors. This involves having meetings with donor agencies and embassies, where official needs lists is presented to them so that they make their pledges. All the assistance received is noted down and those ready to respond to the crisis are coordinated. What follows then is rehabilitation by following some given procedures that govern it. For instance, to shelter, power and water supplies as well as road clearance are given priority (Smith 2007). Globalization has led to the establishment of emergency managements whose structure involves the recovery, risk financing as well as risk transfer. The recovery operations purpose involves the relocation of affected families and provision of shelter for them. The governments should have a risk financing policy which stipulates property insurance against the natural hazards. It should set aside adequate risk management fund and resources for the provision of funding to the rescue programs. Catastrophic events like hurricanes and earthquakes lead to large losses of capital stock, employment and services through loss of life and destruction of property. Indeed, they jeopardize both the external and internal macroeconomic stability resulting into a deficit in the balance of payments. In conclusion, the when disasters occur, different sectors of the country are affected including areas like agriculture, mining, tourism and manufacturing sectors. These effects cause inflation in the country which leads to an increase in the prices of various commodities. Financing such public sectors in dealing with the disasters is a big challenge. It calls for the concern of the international community to offer assistance in various forms including food, shelter, etc. Our brigade should understand the various legal, global as well us ethical considerations in offering their services in accordance with the Fire and Rescue Services Act of 2004. List of References n.a., Thursday, January 14, 2010, “‘every hour matters’ for survivors of earthquake” n.a, n.d, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, n.p, n,c. UNEP, n.d, Disasters and conflicts Programme n.a., 2009, “search and rescue”. UK web resource, retrieved on 21st September 2010, from http://www.intsar.org.uk/pages/general/aboutUs.asp Smith, DA, 2007, Information on disaster risk management Case study of five countries Jamaica, Distr. LTD, Mexico. n.a., 2010, “…that others may live…” Emergency response team, retrieved on 21st September, 2010 from http://www.ertsarhq.webs.com/ n.a., n.d, Law, Globalisation and Ethics Read More