Risk of Fire in Residential Areas - Report Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Community safety Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Community safety Introduction This is the act of preventing, containing or reducing the environmental, social or intimidator aspects affecting the rights of people to live without the fear of crime hence influencing the quality to life that they live. It includes the controlling measures which contributes to the reduction of crimes and tackle the anti-social behaviour. There are many things that should be considered so as to ensure that there is community safety and especially in the residential areas. There are high possibilities of fire risks in the multi-occupancy high-rise buildings providing overpopulated temporary accommodation for the migrant workers. The living styles of these occupants are great hazards to the risks likely to occur in their societies, for example, they may alter the electricity or gas supplies to increase their areas of cooking within their limited living spaces (Rasbash, Ramachandran & Kandola, 2004). Risk of fire in residential areas According to the recent reports from various fire and rescue services, the residential areas are the most affected by the risks of fires which mostly occurs during the nights or when people are carrying on their day to day activities. This is because of the multiple activities taking place due to the differing aims and objectives of life and varied levels of understanding. The role of all the fire services is to ensure that they are aware of the possible causes of any fire outbreak and identify ways of overcoming them. This involves the preventive and controlling measures and especially informing people on the best lifestyle free from the possible environmental risks. They should aim at teaching the residents on the precautions of handling the substances which are at a risk of causing fire like electricity, oxygen and cooking gas. This is mostly in respect to the domestic use as an occurrence of fire is likely to cause more human harm than in the commercial places. For example, the old and children are likely to be burned as they struggle to escape, families can be burnt while a sleep or a loss of properties which are not insured hence it is difficult to replace them. There are different possible4s ways of setting community fires (Hughes & Ferrett, 2009). Types of fire setters in residential areas Each day a new method of setting fire in the community is coming up leading to existence of multiple ways among the occupants; this is because of their differing mode of doing things and their general behaviour. The severity of these fires also differs depending on the type hence causes some substantial financial and psychological damage. The possibility of fire setting depends on the age, sex, sociability, level of deviancy, internalizing and family dynamics of an individual. Curiosity and experimental Some of the residents, especially young boys and girls tend to be so eager to understand or discover the facts behind the existence of everything. They go to an extend of setting fire on something so as to see whether it can burn or not; this may be due to lack of understanding of the possible consequences of an outbreak of uncontrolled fire. Others may play and leave open fires without the idea of its danger to the environment (Jessor, Graves, Hanson & Jessor, 1968). Pathological and emotionally disturbed This involves children and other individuals who have some physiological problems, for example, those with the uncontrolled tempers can do anything when their emotions are high including setting properties on fire or even intending to kill themselves. These children can either be paranoid and psychotic or developmentally disabled or impaired who may want to either kill or harm themselves or may damage properties so as to avoid intentional harm. Accidental Some people may also set fire through accidental ways. These individuals may either be aware of the activities they engage in as potential fire hazards or not, however unwillingly cause the risk. This is mostly contributed by lack of the possible information concerning the safety and health hazards against risks of fire or carelessness when handling substances which are the potential causes of these risks. This mostly occurs in the course of the domestic activities taking place in a residential area like mishandling of cooking gases or altering with the electricity wiring to use it for various purposes like cooking, ironing or uses of other electrical appliances resulting to overheating or short circuit dangers (Kolko & Kazdin, 1991). Social cultural There are some customs either, cultural or religious which requires some fires to be set. Although this can be seen as accidental from some perspective but it is intentional because some big fires have the potential of causing harm if set in a congested society or where there is little space for such communal activities. This can either end up burning the building or polluting the environment hence suffocating the residents or harming their health conditions if they excessively inhale the smoke. Safety measures The fire rescue and service organizations and other responsible individuals like the leaders or parents should consider some safety measures against the above mentioned fire setters so as to reduce the possible risks of fires. These include fire-safety education to various members of the society; this helps to provide information concerning how to handle open fire and the substances which are likely to cause fire like oxygen in cylinders. Parents should teach their children o the dangers of fire and the necessary safety measures to consider when handling fire. For the uncontrollable children like the Autistic should be prevented from coming onto contact with fire as they may be stubborn on their interests. The owners and management of the residential buildings should be encouraged to always ensure that the conditions of electrical; cables are regularly maintained to prevent any danger or to repair where the residents have interfered with; this can help to stop people from altering with the wiring. The fire rescue organizations should always be set to save the lives and properties in case of any risk occurrence by making sure that their equipments are in condition and at a standby. Their location should be near their target places like the residential building so as to be at the spot in time (Slavkin, 2000). The potential risk hazards in multi-occupancy high rise buildings The multi-occupancy and high rise buildings are prone to a number of potential fire hazards. These if not carefully analyzed and a strategy formulated on how to handle them can lead to occurrence of a risk which can be of great loss to the society. The buildings are usually tall with many floors; this is so as to increase its capacity of accommodating the residents hence increasing the congestion. The differing living styles of the residents can highly contribute to the occurrence of the risk of fire. For example, many of them can interfere with the installation of electricity or gas suppliers to fit their interests like increase the cooking areas or uses of other electrical appliances like iron boxes and water heaters leading to dangers of short circuits or overheating due to overloading of the devices. This can easily cause the risk of fire or increase other life risks like electric shocks. Some of them may not have the skills of handling the electricity cables hence can make mistakes while trying to tap them for use in their rooms or can even leave the life wires naked hence; this can result to a severe fire which can easily spread to the whole building through the network of wiring. Most of the devices like TVs and computers contain a lot of hydrocarbon elements which burn with explosions; this increases the severity of the fires in the residential areas since most of the present homes have them. Carelessly dumping of rubbish and other elements like clothes and papers which can easily get fire can also result to occurrence or spread of fire. Some of the occupants may be drunkard or smokers who may not be too carefully while handling fire or may carelessly dispose their pieces of cigarette hence resulting to outbreak of fire. The architectural design or the materials used to construct the building can enhance the outbreak of fire or difficulties in putting down the fire. If the rooms are too small with little or no ventilation can cause fire due to the enclosed oxygen hence resulting to increase in pressure. The building materials differ in their ability to resist fire, for a residential house, the constructing materials should have a high resistance to fire hence reducing its spread or allowing a chance of putting it down (Tilley, 2005). Control measures of fire risks in multi-occupancy high-rise buildings The fire fighters or other safety organizations should ensure that they organize regular seminars and trainings to teach the residents on the best ways of handling elements of fire. This includes electricity and the electrical appliances like the heaters; and cooking gases. People should be discouraged from leaving open fires either in the kitchen or outside after burning the rubbish. This is the main way of minimising the occurrence of a risk since most of the fires are caused by the activities of the residents. The management of these building should ensure that there regular maintenance of the electric installation to repair the defaults which are likely to cause risks; this should be done in accordance to the provisions of the fire code. They should also regularly check on proper exists or signage and extinguishers in easily different and easily accessible places. Automatic fire alarm devices for detection and warning in case of any danger should be properly installed. It is the duty of the management to ensure that there is proper dumping of flammable materials like clothes and papers which can easily cause fire. This is best achieved by setting up rules and regulations on how and where people should dispose their rubbish then the caretaker will know where to dump them. A smoking zone should be set for the smokers and the drunkards so as to stop them from smoking from anywhere or from their rooms packed with highly flammable substances. So as to reduce the severity of the flame, the occupants should be discouraged from stocking their living rooms with substances containing hydrocarbon elements which are highly flammable, for example, in TV sets, computers and fluorescent tubes (Gowen, 2000). The architectural designs and the selection of the materials for the construction of the building should also be considered in accordance to the version of the local building code. The materials chosen should have a high resistance to fires or consider an architectural design which contributes to the resistance of the building, for example, putting up many layers of blocks to increase the strength of walls hence do not easily explored. The rooms should be more spacious with enough ventilation to reduce the pressure of gases inside so as to minimize their explosions. This can be facilitated by the organizations which supervise the buildings techniques for violations of the fire code and training of the builders and the residents on all the necessary safety measures. Achievements of the objectives of community safety events Many factors should be considered to ensure that the objectives of community safety events are achieved. These includes the location of the residential building, the selection of the fire fighting instruments, where to locate them and the assessment of the necessary resources. The instruments chosen should be able to fight the most recent fire risks which occurs in the community, thus risk assessment should first be carried out to determine the potential hazards depending on the recent activities taking place. The identified instruments should be located at the most convenient positions for easy access when need arises. These can either be somewhere within the building or a short distance from the targeted building. The residents should be taught how to use simple extinguishers like the fire hoses which can enable them to mitigate fires before the external fighters responds, these should be stationed within the building. The resources identified to be used to fight the fire should be easily accessible in the community. For example an instrument which requires electric power to operate cannot be considered in the rural areas where there is no access to electricity or water be considered where there is no supply at all like in deserts. The dry gases should not be considered if their sources are miles and miles away as these cannot serve the emergency cases (Clive & Dimmock, 2003). Contents of various initiatives and methods used to effectively communicate these messages to the community. There are various methods which can be used to communicate the safety measures to the society; however they depend on the type of people living in these societies. This is looked into in terms of the age, illiteracy and the activities of the residents; either cultural or economical. Most of the fire and service organizations and other life savers like the Red Cross go to schools to educate children on the safety measures. This is because children have many things in common hence can easily be taught depending on the level of their intelligent and also because it is easier to bring them together than if they were out of school. The children need to be taught in simple language based on their interests and their activities which can easily cause fire. To ensure that they impose the fundamental information concerning the occurrence and the prevention or control of the fire risks, the other members of the community should be taught on the potential hazards of risks of fire and what to do to control them from causing the risk. These hazards can be within their community or as a result of the activities that they undertake for example, some cultural activities which demand the presence of fire can easily cause the risk. For the most remote communities where the formal set up may not be appropriate, other informal ways like displaying of videos or posters showing the occurrence of the fire risks may be relevant. However, for the communities where most of the people are literate or may not get time to attend the public rallies can be issued with publications containing the relevant information. The trainers can try to avail themselves in all the public meetings including the churches where more people are gathered and pass their information (Tilley, 2005). Conclusion The living styles in the today’s societies have high possibilities of causing the occurrence of the risks of fire. This is highly contributed by the activities that are taking place resulting to various hazards. For example, in the multi-occupancy high rise buildings providing accommodation to a number of temporary residents has a lot of activities going on and which can result to occurrence of the risks of fire. The fire service and rescue organization should concentrate on teaching these residents on the possible safety measures so as to reduce the occurrence of these risks. They should also ensure that they carry out a risk assessment process to enable them identify the possible hazards and the best measures to consider for prevention or control of the risks. These should be well communicated to the residents who are the major causes of the occurrence. Bibliography Rasbash D., Ramachandran G. & Kandola B., 2004, Evaluation of fire safety, John Wiley and Sons, New York. Hughes P. & Ferrett E., 2009, Introduction to Health and Safety at Work, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Gowen S., 2000, Community safety, Community Links, New York. Tilley N., 2005, Handbook of crime prevention and community safety, Willan Publishing, Sydney. Clive A. & Dimmock J., 2003, School-based management and school effectiveness, Routledge, New York. Jessor, Graves, Hanson and Jessor, 1968, Society, personality and deviant behaviour: a study of an ethnic community, New York. Kolko and Kazdin, 1991, Motives of fire setters: Fire setting characteristics and psychological correlates. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Slavkin, M., 2000, Juvenile fire setting: an exploratory analysis, Dissertation.Com Publishing, Lowa. Read More