Significance of Risk Management in Relation to Fire and Rescue Services - Assignment Example

Significance of Risk Management In Relation To Fire and Rescue Services Name: Instructor: Course: Institution: Date: SIGNIFICANCE OF RISK MANAGEMENT IN RELATION TO FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICES Assess the significance of risk management in relation to Fire and Rescue Services Fire and rescue services should be strategically designed to appropriately respond adequately to emergency services and should be aimed at reducing injuries, fatalities and fire damages, through a wide range of fire prevention and community safety measures .Integrated risk assessment plan is generally aimed at ensuring sustainable, effective and more responsive fire prevention services ( Larsson, 2009). In some countries, there are laws that accords the fire authorities greater flexibility to even channel greater resources in prevention of emergencies instead of merely responding to them (Larsson, 2009). Basically, this approach focuses on setting out strategies of improving fire services through evolution instead of revolution. Essentially, the concept of “prevention is better than cure” best captures the activities of the fire prevention besides a wider program of community safety. Fundamentally, we need to make certain, a balance between immediate and longer term improvements that needs further investments and improvements. This can be achieved through “making an informed assessment of the risks in the area and best ways to manage them, looking at prevention, enforcement and response” (William, 2007, p. 45). In attempting to reduce fire risk, prevention aims at reducing the number of occurrences that take place while at the same time providing a minimum standard of protection. While designing a fire prevention program, it is important to acknowledge the risk factors that exacerbate the likelihood of fire occurrences. For example, most fires tend to occur in old properties, especially in densely populated and socially deprived areas. Again, habits such as smoking use of drugs and alcohol influence fire outbreaks. Also, households with young children, lone parents, have a limiting disability and have elderly persons are more exposed to risk of fire. One of principle constituent of fire prevention is to step up delivery of education on fire safety (Nelson, 1980). The processes of fire managements has evolved significantly overtime, and is now based on a balanced score approach using four groupings of community, process, people, and finance. It is however important that the whole risk management process get consideration (Magnusson, 2009). The strategy begins with corporate planning process through determination of risks to the community, analyzing the hazards, applying mitigating strategies to minimize the risk to a manageable level and finally examination of the effectiveness of the procedure (Watts & Hall, 2002). The need to conduct risk assessments for safety purposes of the fire-fighter is indispensable. It is however important to note that those risk assessments should be conducted in an organized approach (Watts, 2002). The organized approach ought to include all features of the fire service and predominantly service delivery. This is the basic values for a Community Risk Management process. As the momentum for service delivery shifts to prevention, it becomes important to acknowledge that there is to a large extent wider responsibility in ensuring a securer society. Achievement of secure individuals is one aspect of risk control in this growing responsibility. The risk management style discussed is sufficiently flexible to include all the current aspects of service delivery. Indeed it positively promote a holistic approach in the course of Community Risk Management; to include risks such as life, firefighters, Property, economy, and environment and heritage. In some countries, through legislation of local government Acts, it is essential that the process become transparent and fully understandable to the stakeholders. This, as well issued performance pointers, facilitates the community to examine the fire service in depth .By application of a risk management approach; the Fire Service can easily build closer connections with the society. Build up good relationships and trust with the community can change the community actions. If such efforts are made, individuals can be empowered and encouraged to take ownership and continue being open and receptive to the control strategies that are made. Principles and application of ‘Integrated Risk Assessment Plans (IRAP) ‘within Fire and Rescue Services Integrated risk assessment (IRAP) is the “development of a balanced approach by the fire and rescue services to risks within the community, combining prevention, protection and response measures on a risk assessed basis in order to improve community safety and also create a safer working environment for firefighters” (Nelson, 1980, P.65). IRAP depicts a significant shift in the way fire and rescue services are conducted. The approach involves understanding the needs of the community through use of resources at the right time, in the right place and for the right purpose. In this process, one needs to understand where the risks (especially risk to life) exist and targeting the available resources in a manner that can reduce such risk. In order to understand the people who are most vulnerable in the community, the process requires substantial efforts. This will involve internal improved occurrence recording and profiling complimented externally with a broad approach based on partnership with the public, voluntary and private sectors. Fire and Rescue Authorities are in charge of providing fire services in many countries, and are required generating an Integrated Risk assessment Plan (IRAP) to facilitate their responsibilities. The essence of IRAP is to shift from the conventional functions of fire and rescue authorities (that of being a reactive) to a more pro-active and prevention-centered service. The approach espouses a community perspective strategy (Nelson, 1980). Generally, the community often expects that the emergency services will appropriately ensure control measures to the known risks. The community responses to failures of risk control by the fire service in the event that it occurs demonstrates this fact. Indeed, there is a growing trend whereby the community is claims compensation and penalties for organizations that fail to deliver services as expected. The modern society as a result, desires to be free of unintentional risks, fortified by the conviction that the appropriate controlling organizations have a duty to shield them from injury. The society also insists to know the kind of control measure the organizations have put in place and the basis of making such decisions. As a result, the importance of application of IRAP cannot be overemphasized in most organizations (Nelson, 1980). Integrated Risk Management is concerned with service delivery process as follows: risk is identified, resources are proved and used with skills and as per the requirements, and finally risk control is delivered to the people, firefighters, businesses, the nation’s heritage and the environment. It is undeniably possible for a fire service to deal with a single, a few or all of the above constituents so as to function. Though, all the above aspects must be present for any organization to maintain that it practices integrated risk management service. Community Risk is a study in respect of the risks, expected to be met through service delivery, caused non-fire or fire emergencies, property, firefighters, environment, economy, and heritage, inside the built and non-built setting. For instance, there are four approaches that can be assumed in evaluating the risks within a certain region. These are: use of a general approach by undertaking certain premises that possesses comparable risks, or visit all the premises and conduct individual risk assessment and thus come up with a depiction of the region risk ,or use a risk demand driven approach to facilitate the region outlook to be attained. This necessitates an evaluation to be prepared concerning the historical event data, or mixture of the above. Risk assessment requires establishment of the degree of the risk by any appropriate means, and is a mixture of risk investigation and risk assessment processes (Nelson, 1980). The majority of the risk appraisal methodologies used within the service are qualitative, as they depend on somebody’s opinion as resulting from their experience, knowledge, bias and perception. Risk analysis is the procedure that determines whether the present controls are effective. The aim of the risk analysis procedure is to discover hazards intended to divide the tolerable risks from those that require action, and to give proof to aid in the assessment and control of risks. The sources of the risk must be considered, together with their consequences and the possibility that they may take place. Aspects that may possibly shape the outcome and the possibility should be recognized, even though this may be impossible sometimes. Risk is analyzed through combination of approximates of consequences and their probability while reflecting on the present risk control actions. It is important to note that the risk analysis and the resulting assessment ought to be considered on the same foundation. Risk evaluation is a presentation of the scale of risk. Regarding Community Risk, it is the assessment of risk in the built and non-built surroundings (ISO/PDTS 16732, 2003). Such assessment can be shown descriptively or numerically such as, medium or low, high or negligible or tolerable or intolerable. The result from risk assessment ought to be a prioritized list of risk for additional control, action, or else. Risk control entail establishing the variety of alternative for controlling risk, evaluating those alternatives, preparing risk control plans, and acting upon them. Reviewing and monitoring are vital procedures that apply the means to make certain that the work is applicable, effective, and persistently valid. Qualitative or Quantitative Risk Analysis Risk evaluation can be done using qualitative or quantitative approaches. There are many qualitative approaches to grading risks that apply descriptive scales to determine the scale of outcome or rate the probability of incidence. There is also a large amount of quantitative techniques which use arithmetical assessment instead of descriptive measurements for both the scale of outcome and the probability of unfavorable consequences. A variety of statistics foundation can be used to establish these arithmetical values, together with earlier period occurrence information. Even though all kind of risk evaluation techniques are deliberated to give structure for establishing the degree of risk, all comprises of skewed and random judgments, and give no absolute establishment of risk. To demonstrate the above methods, Chevron’s methodology can be used. The methodology splits assessment into three stages that are conducted in sequence. Following the end each stage, some of the buildings may be left out of the analysis. As such, it is not always compulsory to finish all three phases for each building. Stage 1 - Building and Hazard Identification In this stage, level of occupancy and importance of all process plant buildings are established. Buildings that are not regularly inhabited or are evidently not exposed to fire or explosion. Hazards are eliminated from further analysis at this point. This stage also comprises of introductory hazard evaluation, which establishes if the building has the latent to impact other buildings wit. If the building has the ability to generate any of these hazards, the occupancy level and criticality of each building are subsequently compared to specific screening criteria. Stage 2 - Building Evaluation This stage involves consequence representation of: toxic vapor clouds, vapor cloud explosions, and physical explosions that result from breakage of pressure vessels. Consequences of each possible misfortune are quantified for each of the buildings incorporated in the Stage 2 analysis. If the consequences go beyond certain criterion, reduction measures may be advisable, or it may be crucial to advance to Stage 3 Stage 3 - Risk Assessment Sometimes, it may be essential to carry on to Stage 3 and carry out a risk assessment in cases where reduction measures are not practical or are not cost effective. The first type of risk assessment in Stage 3 is a qualitative evaluation. If the risk is acceptably low, then no additional mitigation is to be done. If the is unacceptably high, then a quantitative risk analysis (QRA) can be conducted. Different factors leading to specific risks within a workplace and the role of Health and Safety legislation in this context Heat: heat is a source of ignition and as such, anything that produces heat can also start off fire. The source of heat can be the equipment and activities which involve the production of heat or several other circumstances which may not produce heat whatsoever. A range of equipment which generates heat includes welding torches, soldering irons, hot plates, electric fires, blow-lamps, space heaters and ovens. Other hazards are matches and smoking. Heat may also get produced as a by-product of other occurrences which can be intended or not intended. For instance, grinding wheels are known to produce sparks or electrical gadget may overheat as a result of being overloaded. Heat can also result from friction and can result to fire outbreak. Fuel: fuel that can lead to fire outbreak in work places may be any combustible material and not necessarily petrol or gas. Many substances are combustible under varied circumstances. Typically, temperature determines the level of combustion of a particular substance. For example, carbon or hydrocarbon can burn very easily a relatively low temperature. Oxygen: oxygen is essential element for combustion and is readily available from the air. Besides, there are other sources such as stored oxygen or compressed oxygen which enhance the natural oxygen. Such chemicals release oxygen as they burn hence aiding combustion. The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 (c.21) It is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was enacted on 1 October 2004. It is only applicable in Britain and most provisions apply only in Wales and England. It replaced the previous Fire Services Act 1947 in Wales and England , it illuminates on the duties and powers of fire authorities to: fight fires, protect people and property from fires, promote fire safety, rescue people from road accidents, deal with other emergency responses such as terrorism and flooding and undertake any other duty to respond to specific needs of the community and the risk they are exposed to. Risk assessment in relation to a work-based task within Fire and Rescue Fig. 1: Risk assessment. The Fire Safety Plan is stipulated in the Health and Safety file which is kept by the human resource manager. The plan verifies that a fire risk assessment will be completed to make certain a sufficient fire safety and will be appraised as necessary. The fire risk assessment will be completed as follows. Description: The building is built of brick with slate roof. The building was constructed in 1986.The building is of low risk as people can escape easily in the event of fire outbreak. Occupancy: Size: Metres x Metres: 30 x 29 Number of Floors: 5 Number of Stairs: 2internal an 3 external Times the Premises are in use: 9.00am. to 9.00pm The Total Number of people within the Premises at any one time: 30 Fire safety systems within the building Fire Warning System: Manual electric complying with BS 5435. Smoke detectors have been supplied in some areas. fire hazards Source of explosion: The explosion sources are those corresponding with office building. There are no considerable explosion sources within the workplace. Smoking is strictly prohibited in the building. Source of Fuel: The sources of fuel are those corresponding with office building. Greater part of the work is finished on computers so there are not huge amounts of paper. identify people at risk Visitors and contractors are welcomed at reception. They are at all times escorted by a worker who will brief them on the fire evacuation measures. Workers are made accountable for their guests during any evacuation. Where visitors are recognized as having disabilities that would prejudice their evacuation, the workplace manager is informed and procedures put in place to make certain their evacuation in the occurrence of fire means of escape – All employees are trained in what measures to take on hearing the distress or notice a fire. There are no workers with disabilities that would prejudice their evacuation from the building. There are adequate fire exits with appropriate width from the building that will allow all persons to evacuate in the occurrence of fire. References Magnusson, S. 2009. How to derive safety factors? London: National Academies Press ISO/PDTS 16732, 2003. Fire Safety Engineering-Guidance on fire risk assessment. Washington DC: The Stationery Office Watts, J., & Hall, J. 2002. The SFPE Handbook, Fire Protection Engineering, section five. Washington DC: McGraw Larsson, D. 2000. Developing the Structure of a Fire Index Method for Timber-frame Multi- Storey Apartment Buildings. London: Lund University Watts, J. M. 2002. The SFPE Handbook, Fire Protection Engineering. Washington DC: McGraw Nelson, H. 1980. System for Fire Safety Evaluation of Health Care Facilities .Washington DC: The Stationery Office William, D., Kalsbeek, H., Thomas J., Plewes, J., & Ericka M, 2007. Measuring respirator use In the workplace. London: National Academies Press Read More