The Last Four Years Incident Data by Station Areas in Merseyside - Case Study Example

Name Instructor’s name Institution Subject Date Community Fire Safety For the last decade of the 20th century, great progress has been made in relation to fire research and this has made it possible for the treatment of fire as a phenomenon which is governed by laws of nature as well as the physical and the chemical phenomena. This in turn has led to the change from an art of fire to a science of fire. Despite this trend d towards a rational design for fire safety, most countries regulatory systems give no encouragement to the calculation of fire safety. This is from the fact that fire safety is only assessed by standard tests only (Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, 2009). There is a significant need to help the parties involved such as the architects, construction companies as well as the design engineers increase their understanding of fire resistance and also how it can be assessed. This document aims at analyzing the incident data by station areas in MERSEYSIDE for the last four years, the societal risks that are associated with the fire incidents to the community and ways of changing the people’s behavior in relation to fire safety (Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, 2009). Analysis of the last four years incident data by station areas in Merseyside The following analysis is for the incidents by station areas in Merseyside for the period of four years as from the year 2004 to 2008. It is important to note that in the entire region of Mersey side recorded 6, 536 less incidents in the 2007/08 period as compared to the incidents it recorded in the 2004/05 period. This according to the date from the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service was a result of the reduction in the secondary fires by 1,995 incidents as well as false alarms which went down by 1, 578 (Clarke, 2009). As per the data from the four years under analysis, the type of incident that is most common is the secondary fires with a record 49, 074 occurrences followed by that of false alarms with 37,578 incidents. All these have been recorded in the C2/C3 centre station. False alarms have been cited to be prevalent in the City centre station. The C4 Low Hill station saw consistently the greatest amount of incident each year for the period under analysis in terms of Single House Dwelling fires. As a rare occurrence, the C4 station was the only that had a consistency in seeing these kind of fires recording more than 100 single dwelling House fires year in year out for the period under analysis. On the other hand, the top three stations that saw a high occurrence of secondary fires were the N3 Croxteth and E1 St Helens. St Helen recorded 3, 994 secondary fires while the N3 Croxteth saw 3, 807 occurrences of secondary fires. A notable drop of the secondary fires incidents were recorded at the E3 Huyton which recorded 3, 182 incidents for the period under analysis (Clarke, 2009). For the four year period under analysis, false alarms have been found to account for 30.4% of all the incidents that were recorded over this period while the secondary fires accounted for 39.7% of all the incidents that occurred during this period. As for the station that recorded the lowest amount of secondary fires was the N6 Formby with only 270 secondary fires. According to the data available from Merseyside, the false alarms were highly attended to in the various stations that there are. For instance the C2?C3 City Centre station had the highest number of false alarms that they attended with 5, 412 followed by the N7 Southport stations with 2, 368 false alarm occurrences while S8 Old Swan was third with 2, 096 false alarm occurrences. The secondary fires attended to by the N6 Formby station were similar to its false alarms recording a low of 282 occurrences (Clarke, 2009). On the other hand, there has been a reduction in the various incident types from the first year of our analysis i.e. 2004/05. According to the data available from the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, there has been a great reduction of 1, 995 in the Secondary fires, other fires reduces by 1, 724 while the False Alarms reduced by 1, 578. This means that the people living in these areas a have learnt the need to conserve the resources that are available. Again in the cases of false alarms, this can be attributed to the people knowing the need to raise an alarm when it is really important (Clarke, 2009). The station that recorded the highest number of incidents was the C3 City Centre, in the 2004/05 period it recorded 2. 241 incidents and of these incidents 66.9% were false alarm calls. One other important thing to note is that of the false alarm calls in Merseyside, 14.1% of them came from the C3 station area. During this period, there were 33, 628 incidents with the most common type of incident being the secondary fires followed closely by the false alarms. The two are cited to have accounted for a 68.9% of all the incidents in Merseyside in 2004/05 (Clarke, 2009). The single House dwelling fires were highest seen in the C4 Low Hill station with 171 incidents with W1 Birkenhead seeing 121 incidents. In the Other types of fire incidents, it was the C4 Low Hill that recorded the great number of incidents with 153 incidents followed by S8 Old Swan which saw 140 incidents while Kirkdale had 136 incidents. The following year (2005/06) recorded 31, 210 incidents which was a drop from 33, 628 incidents of the previous year. The C4 Low hill recorded an increase to become the 2nd busiest station while it was the only station to record more than 100 single Dwelling House fires. The greatest secondary fires were seen in E1 St Helens with 1, 027 incidents. The quickest response stations were E4, E5, W2, E2, S1, W5, W3 and N6 (Clarke, 2009). For the 2006/07 period, the C4 Low Hill recorded 2, 107 incidents which was an increase from what it recorded in the two previous years. The most common type of fire was again the secondary fires together with false alarms. Compared to the rest of the years, secondary fires increased to 13, 423 to be the highest level for the years that are under analysis. False alarms incidents however dropped during this period. In the 2007/08 period, the C2 City Centre station happened to see the greatest amount of incidents just as it was in the 2004/05 and 2005/06. During this period the whole of Merseyside recorded the lowest level of incidents for the four year. This also was the only year that incidents fell below the 230, 000 mark recorded a low of 27, 092 incidents. Every station saw a low of incidents as compared to the previous years. The greatest reduction is noted in the W1 Birkenhead station while the N3 Croxteth saw the greatest amount of the secondary fire incidents with 885 incidents. Single House dwelling incidents were again high in C4 Low Hill which saw 108 incidents. Moreover, the C1 Kirkdale and C2 City Centre were the only stations to see more than 100 incidents of Building fires with 112 and 125 respectively while C2 City centre dominated the false alarm incidents with 1, 241 incidents (Clarke, 2009). For the four year period under analysis, October can be termed as the peak period for fire incidents which had 12, 187 incidents, July came in second followed by November. In conclusion, incidents are seen to be on a downward trend over the period under analysis. This is seen to be as a result of the reduction in Secondary fires, False Alarm calls and other fires (Clarke, 2009). Data storage The Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service have over the past a great data storage in method in practice. Nevertheless, there have been changes for the future. One of the significant changes that have been applied on data storage is that the fire and rescue service team has worked is an adoption of IT based risk assessment as well as a reduction model which is to replace the old standards. This will in a great way help in the storage of information regarding incidents. For instance, data in the past had not been stored by Geo-coding; geo-coding is the process that assigns a map coordinate precisely for a given address (Clarke, 2009). The moment that this coordinate is assigned, its address is displayed on the map the geo-coded data resides on GIS since the data is plotted on a map base meaning that the data can be used for the purpose of analysis. This data will be helpful for the fire data can be analyzed on a year to year basis allowing the hot spots to be easily identified and the regions where there have been clusters of dwelling fires are also easily identified. That means that from the analysis, the high risk areas will be easily identified and strategies put in place to deal with this situation (Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, 2009). Putting up this program to a fully fledged working one means that there will be a comprehensive risk assessment activity as well as a planning tool for the Merseyside Public. The risk mapping software will be of great assistance to the authority while they make the resource allocations which are based on the risk levels since the model highlights them (Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, 2009). Strategies for the community safety Having the fire skills mean that there is prevention against fires and as a result there is the saving of lives and a reduction in injuries resulting from fire incidents. On the other hand, fire prevention saves money since the cost of dealing with the fire incidents is not incurred. This is the reason why it is important to come up with a fire safety strategy to be able to protect the community as well as preventing the occurrence of fire incidences. It is part of a government vision to have a fire and Rescue Service that is very proactive in the prevention of various risks and that of fire not just one that reacts to fires. There is need to have the societal risks; the number of persons likely to be killed in an incident of fire. In the assessment process therefore there should be the estimation of the societal risks using either the points based on prose or points system. Working in partnership with the Merseyside Community To be able to make the Merseyside a fire safe community, there is need for the fire and Rescue service to work in partnership with the community so as to provide a service that has a real value for money as far as the reduction of the injury, death and loss of property due to fire is concerned; to be able to protect the community as the environment not forgetting any visitors to the region. They should also be able to have a provision of a high quality fire and rescue service within the available resources and with the Best Value Principles. An effective strategy is one that has the community included in the reducing of the risk throughout the community through a protective community service. One that has the Merseyside Fore and Rescue Service respond quickly to all sorts of emergencies and with skilful personnel which will assist in the restoration and the maintaining of a high quality of life in the Merseyside community. Involving the community will mean a reduction in the number of incidents if fires in Merseyside. It is important to encourage the Merseyside community to live safer lives by contributing towards an improved health. For this reason, it will be important to try and identify the areas that make the areas that have hire incidents as well as those with a high population vulnerable to fire. On the other hand, an inclusion of the young people in the development of a healthier and fitter lifestyle can impact significantly on the people’s attitudes. For the reason that older people make up the most vulnerable group, the Fire and rescue Service should have programs that involve them search as opening gym to have them keep fit for response in their own areas of residence. Installing fire equipment The installation of fire equipment such as smoke detectors in houses will enable the fire service to respond to action events rather than the false arms calls. On the other hand, heat detectors will also play an important role in reducing the dwelling as well as building fires. They will help much since they give an early alarm for the fire. Education and Communication It is important that the community is educated about fire and the need for a free incidents society. There is great need for the Fire Service to have the involvement and the engagement between the hard to influence groups and the fire and Rescue authority will highly influence reduction of incidents through high community awareness. This will improve the communication between the firefighters and the public which will mean even the children get involved since they understand the need for fire safety. The fire service should therefore give to the community brochures that are written in simple language which is easily understood by any member of the community. In this brochure, the basics of how to deal with fire and how people should evacuate from buildings. Moreover, lectures to educate the public about fire and fire safety Is very paramount. Frequent Inspections Frequent inspection of public facilities which includes ensuring that all the fire systems are well maintained and working properly is important; this will help in ensuring that the number of false alarms go down from the fact that the systems work properly. This will see the reduction of the incidents since all the stakeholders are involved. References Clarke, P. M. (2009). ANALYSIS OF THE LAST FOUR YEARS INCIDENT DATA BY STATION AREAS IN MERSEYSIDE. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service. (2009). Planning for Change. Retrieved March 04, 2010, from http://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pages/irmp/irmp/planning.htm Read More