Fire Risk Management in Students' Hostels - Research Paper Example

Fire Risk Management in students' hostels 1. Introduction in Risk Management. Kemshall & Pritchard (1997) argue that the quality of human life is often enhanced by risk-taking: “life without risk would be sterile” (p.10). However, one cannot but admit that such risk-taking should be clearly justified and balanced in order to ensure that an individual self, or other people, or physical environment (property, nature, etc.) are not exposed to unnecessary harms. Besides the right to risk, any individual has the responsibility for the consequences of risk-taking, as well as the right to protection from risky actions of other people. USFA (1996) defines a risk by three possible ways: The possibility of meeting danger or suffering harm or loss, or exposure to harm or loss. A person or thing insured or representing a source of risk. To expose to the chance of injury or loss. (p.4). These definitions reveal important factors of any risk: the probability of a risk’s occurrence, which can be described or quantified, and the consequences, the harmful severity of which also can be described or quantified (e.g. as expected or real losses). Probability and consequence help an individual to assess a possible risk and to make a personal or professional decision in regard to be in danger of this risk or not. Risks are very diverse by their nature. They can include industrial risks, technology risks, global risks, etc.; but it is always necessary keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of risks occur as consequences of human decision making (Coles et al., 2000). Cote (2003) suggests defining a hazard as a “characteristic of a system or process that represents a potential for an unplanned event leading to undesirable losses” (p.283). A strategy and practical methods for avoiding and mitigating undesirable hazards constitute the area of risk management. Risk management includes various activities and control measures related to the evaluation of risks, the lowering the risks’ probability and the diminishing of harmfulness of their consequences. USFA (1996) categorizes control measures as administrative (guidelines, policies, procedures aimed to lower losses), engineering (technologies that limit hazards) and personal protection (equipment, clothing and devices that protect an individual). Thus, risk management can be defined as: “the set of ongoing management and engineering activities …that ensures that risks are effectively identified, understood, and minimised to a reasonable achievable and tolerable level. The activities include feedback mechanisms and continuing performance monitoring” (Coles et al., 2000, p.25). Risk management generally encompasses many aspects, including safety and health, finances, cost and loss control, etc. 2. Risk Management in Health and Safety: modern approaches. Nowadays safety, health and welfare are widely used as major dimensions of the approach to risk management in the workplace. “Safety” is understood here as related to physical injuries, which a person may experience at the workplace; “health” denotes physiological malfunctions associated for example with illness; “welfare” relates to psychological conditions, such as stress. However, Erickson (1996) argues that taking into account the interconnected physical, psychological and physiological aspects of human life it is very difficult to differentiate clearly between work-related and human life-related aspects. Thus, the modern human well-being is considered as “a real-world integration of a person’s total life experience” (Erickson, 1996, p.4); it includes workplace, environmental quality and the human community. This perspective, often called as the “Integrated Environmental Planning and Management”, was introduced at the first time at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, which is also known as the Earth Summit (Erickson, 1996). Now the paradigm of Integrated Environmental Planning and Management is widely used under the acronym HSE (health, safety, environment), and it is at the heart of many national and international regulations related to social and corporate responsibilities to ensure safety, health and welfare of people. A great number of various physical, chemical, biological and other agents can cause health and safety hazards. In order to reduce the risk associated with a specific hazard, the exposure needs to be reduced. Following the USFA categorisation, Erickson (1996, p.15) suggests three exposure-control approaches, which are important not only at the workplace, but also within the community: 1. Management control, which includes the management of schedules, assignments, and procedures and the minimization of the frequency and duration of exposure to specific hazards; 2. Engineering control, which involves the use of space, barriers, and ventilation devices to limit and isolate exposure; 3. Personal protective clothing and equipment. 3. Fire Risk Management Among numerous health and safety hazards the hazard of fire is on of the most severe and harmful, as it threatens both human life and property (Rasbash et al., 2004). When fire occurs indoors, heat, smoke and products of combustion can kill a lot of people for the short time. But outdoor fires can be also terrible as one can see on the example of forest fires in California, Greece and other countries, which suffered from forest fires recently. Fire safety has been a great concern of people and governments for centuries. Today not only specific government departments, responsible for fire safety, but also numerous local authorities, standard bodies, insurance and other service organisations, including national and international organisations and associations, take part in fire safety and fire risk management practice. A good example of such non-profit organisation is the U.S. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which contains 10 % of the membership from 70 countries outside the United States (Rasbash et al., 2004). This organization’s activity is basically the development of standards, which later are published and distributed across the world. Among these standards are such well-known and widely-recognized codes as Fire Prevention Code, Life Safety Code, National Fire Code, Fire Protection Handbook and many others. Legal regulations are changed frequently depending on the understanding of fire safety, existing in the given time. The distinctive feature of today’s fire risk management policy in many countries is its main focus onto prevention of fires. There is the mentioned above Fire Prevention Code in the U.S., and the UK government (CLG, 2004), taking into account the sad statistics of deaths in fires, also states: “Evidence proves that prevention is better than cure …the best way to save lives and reduce injuries and other losses is to reduce the number of fires that start …All fire and rescue authorities must make fire prevention a mainstream activity.” (p.1) Such proactive fire prevention activity is for the most part aimed to influence the behaviour of the social groups associated with the highest fire risks – children, students, elderly people, drug and alcohol users, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, people involved in crime, etc. Undoubtedly, prevention activity is not alone; it is integrated with risk assessment, protection and response activities, what ensures fire risks reducing (CLG, 2009). Yet, a quantity of fires, especially in residential constructions, remains considerable. Rasbash et al. (2004) assert that the most frequent location for fires is within buildings, which include both domestic and nondomestic properties. According to the U.S. statistics of fires for 2009, structure fires accounted for 480,500 (36% of all reported fires), 377,000 (78%) of which were in residential properties, including “homes, hotels, motels, rooming houses and dormitories” (Ahrens, 2010, p.3). These fires caused about 2,700 civilian deaths and 14,800 civilian injuries, as well as $10.8 billion in direct property damage (Ahrens, 2010). In the UK the number of building fires is also significant, it accounts for about 61,000 fires (60% of all fires) from April 2009 to March 2010; 39,000 of these fires are dwelling fires (CLG, 2010, p.10). Fire statistics also shows that the fire incidents happens in dependence on behaviour of people, living in buildings, and fires tend to depend on types of buildings, their locations, types of residents, and on a day time. Among other buildings, places where people sleep, such as hotels, hospitals, accommodation centres, hostels are of a great importance, as they house a big quantity of people at once. 4. Fire Risk Assessment for students' hostels. The level of necessary fire safety can be ensured after the proper fire risk assessment. It helps to identify what fire prevention measures should be undertaken and what fire safety systems and equipment should be implemented in order to provide a sufficient control and to reduce fire risks’ possibility and to mitigate the severity of its consequences. The results of a risk assessment also help the responsible authorities to focus on the risks that are more significant in its scope. Thus, risk assessment is a careful examination of hazards associated with various specified activities, which are potential to cause harm. Hazard identification in a risk assessment is the process of recognizing hazards that can cause significant undesirable losses. So, identified hazards should be evaluated to estimate a significance of potential losses. Fire risk assessment can be done by using different documentation that provides information for the assessment process. It may includes: fire safety / health and safety policy and regulations, documented histories of previous fires, buildings plans and documented histories of building changes, fire safety systems schemes, details of evacuation exercises, fire logs and statistics, demographical statistics and social characteristics of dwellers, previous risk assessment reports and many other documents (Furness & Muckett, 2007). An example of the fire risk assessment for students’ hostels is presented in this chapter to illustrate one of the possible modern methods of fire risk management. Students’ hostels are chosen as a place that is the most subjected to fire hazards. The most prevalent risk assessment technique is Probability-Severity method, based on an estimation of the likelihood and magnitude of potential losses. As Cote (2003) asserts, this predictive method integrates successfully with statistical data and expert opinions. Cote (2003) describes the following primary steps of a risk assessment in relation to fire safety: 1. Identification of the fire events that could lead to significant loss. 2. Quantification of the fire risk – that is, probability of fire event occurrences (likelihood) and loss consequences (severity). 3. Development and evaluation of alternative fire prevention and / or fire protection strategies (recommendations) to reduce the fire risk. 4. Measurement of the estimated change in fire risk (difference in probability and / or consequences) associated with the alternatives. (p.283) Combining these general recommendations with more practical methodologies of a risk assessment of the NEC Group (2009) and “Five Steps” of the HSE (2006), we developed the risk assessment methodology and conducted the risk assessment for a hypothetic students’ hostel. All results are presented in the Table 1. Our risk assessment methodology consists of the following steps: 1. Identification of potential hazards or fire events that could lead to significant loss. For identification of fire events we used the UK fire statistical data 2007 (CLG, 2009b; CLG, 2010). We chose the most often occurring fire events, related to student accommodation’s conditions and student lifestyle (Column 1, Table 1). 2. Identification of persons at risk – all persons (groups) who “may be at risk if exposed to the hazard” (NEC Group, 2009, p.2) (Column 2, Table 1). 3. Quantification of the Severity Level (S), the Likelihood (L) and the Population Rating (P). For quantification the following matrix has been used (see Fig.1), where Severity and Population were defined from a common sense, and Likelihood was defined according to the UK fire statistical data 2007: more 200 fires – Possible level of Likelihood (5); more 500 fires – Likely level of Likelihood (10); more 1000 fires – Certain level of Likelihood (20). Figure 1. The matrix to quantify the level of risk. Source: NEC Group, 2009, p.5. 4. Calculation of Risk Rating (RR) as a result of multiplication: RR = S x L x P. Value of the Risk Rating enables to prioritise risks according the Risk Rating matrix (see Fig. 2). In the Table 1 RR is presented in Column 6, it is evidently that several risks have unacceptable and high level. Risk Rating Action < 10 Acceptable Monitor and Review < 20 Low Within 3 months < 50 Medium Within 1 month < 100 High Within 1 week 100 + Unacceptable Immediately Figure 2. The matrix of risk rating. Source: NEC Group, 2009, p.6. 5. Once risks have been prioritised, it is possible to define preventive, protective and responding activities and control measures that are needed from the responsible authorities to mitigate risks and reduce them to as low as it is reasonably practicable. In dependence on risk rating, actions differ in urgency – the most serious risks require immediate actions (see Fig. 2). Suggested actions are presented in Column 7, Table 1. 6. It is also possible to predict a residual risk rating (RRR), basing upon new values of severity, likelihood and population (see Columns 8-10, Table 1) that are presumed after accomplishment of all suggested control measures (see Column 11, Table 1). It is evidently that new estimated levels of risks are on fairly acceptable and low level. The detailed description of activities and responsibilities form a Strategy Action Plan for the authorities responsible for fire safety in our hypothetic students’ hostel. The last step of this plan is the regular monitoring of the plan and reviewing of the risk assessment in order to keep them relevant, suitable and sufficient. Table 1. Fire Risk Assessment for a students’ hostel. Hazards 1 Persons at risk 2 S 3 L 4 P 5 RR 6 Activity and Controls 7 S 8 L 9 P 10 RRR 11 Smoking related risks Careless smoking Students 5 20 3 300 Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Fire-fighting equipment, Information leaflet in each room Fire escape plan in each room 2 5 2 20 Playing with lighters or matches Students 5 5 2 50 Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Room fire extinguisher, Information leaflet 2 5 1 10 Cooking appliances Misuse of electric cookers Students, cooks 5 20 2 200 Regular intactness testing, Smoke detectors in kitchens, Kitchen fire extinguisher, Auto closers in kitchen doors 2 5 2 20 Chip / fat pan fires Students, cooks 2 20 2 80 Smoke detectors in kitchens, Kitchen fire extinguisher, Chip pan replacing, Auto closers in kitchen doors 2 5 2 20 Placing articles too close to heat Students, cooks 5 20 2 200 Smoke detectors in kitchens, Kitchen fire extinguisher, Auto closers in kitchen doors Information leaflet 1 5 2 10 Space heating appliances Faulty appliances and leads Students, cleaners, servicers 5 10 3 150 Regular intactness testing, Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Fire-fighting equipment, Fire escape plan 2 5 2 20 Placing articles too close to heat Students, cleaners, servicers 5 10 3 150 Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Fire-fighting equipment, Fire escape plan 2 5 2 20 Blowlamps Misuse of liquid petroleum gas Students 5 5 3 75 Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Fire-fighting equipment, Fire escape plan, Information leaflet 2 5 2 20 Electrical distribution and equipment Faulty appliances and leads Students, cleaners, servicers 5 20 3 300 Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Fire-fighting equipment, Regular intactness testing, Fire escape plan in each room 2 5 2 20 Candles Careless handling of fire Students 2 5 2 20 Smoke detectors in each room and facilities, Room fire extinguisher 1 5 2 10 References Ahrens, M. (2010). Trends and patterns of U.S. fire losses in 2009. Massachusetts: National Fire Protection Association. Available from: http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/OS.Trends.pdf [Accessed 26 Nov 2010]. Coles, E., Smith, D., & Tombs, S. (2000). Risk management and society. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Cote, A.E. (2003). Organizing for fire and rescue services. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). (2004). Fire & Rescue Services Act 2004 – key factsheet 2: Focus on prevention. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Available from: www.communities.gov.uk/documents/fire/pdf/128929.pdf [Accessed 25 Nov 2010]. Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). (2009a). Integrated risk management planning guidance note 4: A risk assessment based approach to managing a fire safety inspection programme. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Available from: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/fire/pdf/IRMPguidancente4 [Accessed 25 Nov 2010]. Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). (2009b). Fire statistics. United Kingdom, 2007. London, Department for Communities and Local Government. Available from: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/1320522.pdf [Accessed 25 Nov 2010]. Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). (2010). Fire Statistics Monitor: April 2009 - March 2010. London, Department for Communities and Local Government. Available from: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/1693248.pdf [Accessed 26 Nov 2010]. Erickson, P.A. (1996). Practical guide to occupational health and safety. London: Academic Press. Furness, A., & Muckett, M. (2007). Introduction to fire safety management. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Health and Safety Executive (HSE). (2006). Five steps to risk assessment. London: Health and Safety Executive. Available from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg163.pdf [Accessed 25 Nov 2010]. Kemshall, H. & Pritchard, J. (1997).Good practice in risk assessment and risk management. Vol.2. Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. NEC Group (2009). How to write a risk assessment. Birmingham, the NEC Group. Available from: http://www.thenec.co.uk/exhibitions/Documents/How%20to%20Write%20a%20Risk%20Assessment.pdf [Accessed 25 Nov 2010]. Rasbash, D.J., Ramachandran, D., Kandola, B., Watts, J.M., & Law, M. (2004).Evaluation of fire safety. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. United States Fire Administration (USFA). (1996). Risk management practices in the fire service. Washington, DC: Federal Emergency Management Agency. Read More