Societal Risks of Merseyside Fires - Essay Example

Analysis of the last four years incident data by station areas in Merseyside Merseyside, that comprises of five metropolitan boroughs: of St Helens, Knowsley, Wirral, Sefton, and the city of Liverpool, and spread over 249 square miles has an estimated population of 1,365,900 people. Having taken its name from River Mersey, on lower precincts of Mersey Estuary and on both banks of which is the county centered, Merseyside has witnessed more than 3000 fires in the last ten years killing average nine people each year. Dwelling, out-of-context fires have been attributed as the cause of most fire-related deaths. It is noteworthy that in dwelling fires the dwellings are already under risk of a fire and these dwellings normally satisfy most of the fire-prevention rules and regulations as laid down by the government. Since dwelling fires cannot be forecast by existing modeling techniques, their current relevance has often been debated and also need for their upgradation or development of new methodologies often discussed. Present modeling techniques are based on principles of linearity and thus do not take into considerations that diversity exists within these areas which have to be looked into, analyzed and understood individually rather than through a presumption that today’s occurrence can be repeated tomorrow with circumstance remaining as the same. Discussion on the societal risks associated with incidents of fire in the community Societal risks of Merseyside fires can be counted from both individual risks and societal risks scenarios. A person in the vicinity of a fire is at, if not more, but potential risk of the damage the fire can inflict. This would generally include injury to the individual, probability of sustaining one, and time factor i.e., in which duration of the fire, if the fire prolongs, is the individual susceptible to sustain an injury. The risk is measures in terms of a year and is dependent on spatial coordinates that determine will or will not the individual sustain an injury in an outdoor setting in the vicinity of fire. In other words, individual risk is the risk associated with a person per year on the likelihood that the person will be either seriously injured or totally incapacitated due to fire. The raw calculation on which this will be measured would, for example, be 1 in 10,000 a year per person. Societal risk, on the other hand, is normally determined with respect to certain per year number of certain deaths associated with frequency of fire incidents in the same year. This can be explained, for example, vis-à-vis fires a fire and corresponding deaths every two years. Put differently, this can be called societal life risk, which would mean total number of people killed in a single fire incident. Sic deaths or more in a fire constitute an incident that posed societal risk. The number of fatalities depends on a number of factors; notable few of which are the timing of fire, number of people occupying the building when the fire raged and intensity of the fire. Fire regulation authorities have put the number of occupants in different slots of 1000+, 100 to 199, and 20 to 99. The last being the least. Such numbers provide a great deal of help while estimating the loss to life a fire might inflict on an assumption that 85 percent occupants will be able to evacuate themselves safely within first few moments of the commencement of fire, while the rest 15 percent will be requiring immediate help. For areas under high fire risk, it has been estimated that fire evacuation service must reach with five minutes of being informed, and the efficiency of fire prevention services required depends on the type of property under fire, environment, heritage risks and business continuity. Community societal risks of fires can be gauged by a number of factors; primarily ones which have been enumerated are owners’ awareness of the risks that can lead to fires and their basic knowledge on prevention and control. In fact protection of buildings from unwanted fires is primarily responsibility of three parties involved: i) building code authorities, ii) the fire service, and iii) owners of the properties under risk of fire. In order to reduce the threat and incidents of fire, government standards and building codes recommend building of structures which can provide some immunity from fire through specific types of materials used, and proper fire fighting infrastructure Cohen, 2000). Recently ample of work has been done on Merseyside fires that have pin-pointed certain factors posing high fire risks in communities. For example it was seen that most of the fires broke out in homes that were rented, were too old, and were in inner city limits, areas that were socially deprived and in high density localities. Householders who would drink alcohol, use drugs or chip pans, were having young children, were lone parents, were elderly or had a disability were more likely to initiate a fire due to error in their homes than those who belonged to just the opposite group. Low income localities were at greater risk of fire than high income localities. It was seen that fire truly did discriminate since areas inhabiting lower socio-economic people were frequently hit. This is further compounded by the fact that Merseyside has an aged population (2001 census) increased from according to 1991 data. Nearly 18 percent of Sefton population is above 85-year old, and just 1 percent less than that in Wirral. Similarly, number of pensioners in Merseyside has increased in the last decade and the increase is actually higher than the average nationally. Most of these pensioners live alone; a potential risk for fire breakout. Domestic fires have a tendency to spread very fast and by the time help is sought either by inmates or outsiders, the fire is already at its raging best to destroy life and property. This is why community fires tend to impose more damage to life and property. Even though Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is known for its rapid presence and action at the time of fires, but in case of community fires here that is, unfortunately, considered to be not the only factor that can help minimize the damage (Merseyfire.gov.uk, nd). Identification and discussion on strategies to change people’s behaviour in relation to safety from fire Different people react differently to different emergency situations, particularly in fire. The underlying intention of each response is getting away from and saving oneself from the impact of fire. However it is not necessary that the person under threat of the impact of fire may have taken the most appropriate, logical and scientifically correct method. The last few decades have seen considerable research going into human behaviour prevalent during fires and other emergency situations and it is supposed to provide further help in developing strategies which can limit the impact of domestic and ass well as non-domestic fires. Human behaviour as a response to a fire has largely been seen developing in three stages: i) prevent the ignition, ii) control the spread of fire, and iii) get away from it. Some fires leave one with a very short interval for action. Interval for action is that critical period of time available to take action against the impact of fire and be saved from it. A number of primary factors are considered to be at work during an individual's behaviour and subsequent action at the time of fire, which include age of the occupant (very young and very old people cannot withstand impact of fire; hence the maximum causalities in this group, ii) size (people with larger body size have the capacity to bear toxic emissions from fire more than those with smaller built, iii) pre-existing physical conditions (any underlying illness proves of deterrence in brave behaviour towards preventing, fighting, and moving away from fire, iv) weak respiratory capacity (for example, asthmatics will be desperate during fires than non-asthmatic people, v) alcohol, drugs, medication (dangers of fire cannot be recognised by alcoholics quickly, and people on drug and medication will have a reduced attention span to mitigate the impact of fire thoughtfully). Research has revealed that 10 percent of those killed by fire were impaired either by drugs or by alcohol (Flannery Associates, 2001). Consequently, the need for integrating behavoural science with the study of fire prevention and control has been felt in the recent years with an emphasis on reducing the burden of injury in case of fires. This is because injuries, be they inflicted from fire or any other reason, are de facto preventable. Research has widely begun to support the positive outcomes that are associated with the application of behavioural science in both understanding and reducing risk of injuries associated with behaviours in emergency situations. Behaviour change is assumed to be at the core of injury prevention (Sleet, Hopkins, & Singer, 2003). Applied behavioural analysis has been used in case of residential fires, particularly for improving emergency response skills and escape behaviours. Similarly, in case of public buildings change safety behaviours have been brought into practice. These behaviours have been pivotal in modify overall behaviours that help modify injury control (Leslie, 2001; Jones, 1984). Public health literature is replete with the impact behaviour change prpogrammes can bring about in the wellbeing of communities, and helping get them rid of the vices that are direct or indirect causes for mortality or morbidity. But a 2007 National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence reported that despite being effective these changes could not yield the expected benefit on account of being faced with a lack of strategic approach from the government’s side, National Health Services (NHS) or allied agencies (NICE, 2007). Although a number of interventions in the programmes were not directly linked to the fire incidents, yet a few of them were potentially relevant and expected to help reduce the fatalities during fires. The two important ones were reduction in alcohol and smoking. Departments a Fire and Rescue Training Development, Fire and Rescue Community safety, Fire and Rescue Human Resource, and Fire and Rescue Resilience Units were a part of this initiative. Discussion and evaluation of methods used to manage information efficiently If an analysis of fire incidents in Merseyside is done from 2004/2005 to 2007/2008, the incidents can clearly be seen to have fallen in the latter years as compared to the initial ones in this time span. From 33,628 incidents in 2004/2005, the incidents fell to 27,092 in 2007/2008. That is a 19.04 percent drop in as little as four years. This is largely attributed to exemplary carried out by initiatives Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service. One of them is its efficient information management system that it has been developing over the years. According to John L Curtis, Head of Knowledge and Information Management at Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, it has improved its site-specific risk information services to its citizens, and has been using Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and BLPU classification to classify buildings from a commercial angle; this initiative acts as a guide to demarcating key hazard locations while providing site-specific layouts to the department for use in times of emergencies. There has also been considerable attempt at developing stronger rapport with commercial building owners in order to keep the information more structured and reliably accessible. With these information-based initiatives Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service department aims at making its crews performance even much better and faster through quick retrieval of the location on fire and faster response to the same. The department further envisions improving the LLPG data set quality, and adopting LLPG’s UPRN for further integration with the system (IAHUB.net, nd). Evaluation of statistical evidence to inform future intervention strategies The intervention that Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service has been taking over the years has been showing impact in one or the other way. If the impact is to be looked at from the point of view of reduced incidents, then it is clear that there were 6,536 fewer incidents in 2007/08 as compared to 2004/05. Of this secondary fires constituted the biggest reduction of 1,995, false alarms 1,578, and other fires 1,724. It is notable that secondary fires constituted 39.7 percent of all 49,072 incidents, followed by false alarms which stood at 37,578 incidents; a 30.3 percent figure. False alarms accounted for higher incidents, 8,158 in number, in C2 and C3 City Centre station. As many as 5,412, which is 66.3 percent, were on account of false alarms, on the other hand, C4 Low Hill recorded the highest number of single house welling fires of over 100 a year. Croxteth and Helens accounted top positions of 3,807 and 3,994 fires respectively. Huyton incidents dropped to 3,182. It is clear that Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service would have a lot to gain if in future it embarks on further modernisation of its services and working in synchrony with general technology developments, agendas et by e-government, and community expectations. Furthermore, it can realign its organisational development, invent new ways of working and revamp its working culture. One of important future initiatives could be maximum use of technology for information assimilation, retrieval and dissemination to offer wider benefit to people with maximum impact. Wider use of information and communication technology would achieve broader objectives of preventing and protecting fires, provide emergent response, safeguard business continuity, and can a brand image of an effective organisation thriving on modern use of technology and vested in best value principals. Realisation of this vision will on part of Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service will ensure right-time delivery of information to the right place in case of an emergency. References Cohen, J. D. (2000). Preventing Disasters, Home Ignitability in the Wildland-Urban Interface, Journal of Forestry, March 2000, pp15-21 Introduction to Fire Science, Section 1, Unit 4 - Human Behaviour and Fire. Available at http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~tflan/documents/101docs/FIS101HumanBehavior-Fire.pdf. Accessed March 03, 2012 IAHUB.net. (nd). Site Specific Risk Information Project, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Citizen Award 2011, Available http://www.iahub.net/docs/1320852586214.pdf. Accessed March 03, 2012 Jones RT, Van Hasselt VB, Sisson LA. Emergency fire safety skills: a study with blind adolescents. Behav Modif 1984;8:59–78 Leslie J., (2001). Behavioural safety: extending the principles of applied behavioral analysis to safety in fires in public buildings. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Human Behavior in Fire. London, United Kingdom: Interscience Communications, 1–10 Merseyfire.gov.uk. (nd). The Social Dimension of Fire. Available http://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pages/IRMP/IRMP/analysis.htm. Accessed March 03, 2012 NICE (2007). Behaviour change at population, community and individual levels. London: National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Available http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/PH006quickrefguide.pdf. Accessed March 03, 2012 Sleet, D.A., Hopkins K., Singer, H.H., (2003). Bibliography of behavioral science research in unintentional injuries. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Read More