Education and Installation Fire Warning Devices - Article Example

The total cost of fire in the United States according to the National Fire Protection (2011:2) is around $362 billion which is roughly 2.5% of the country’s gross domestic product. The costs include losses caused by fire and expenditures on fire prevention, protection, and mitigation. However, statistics provided in the report do not include a breakdown for community fire safety campaigns but further analysis shows that it is considered part of the economic losses (fire department expenditures, fire protection cost, and others) which is $20.1 billion. In the United Kingdom, statistics for 2011-12 shows 380 fire-related fatalities where 76% occurred in dwelling fires.

There was around 43,500 dwelling fire in the UK in the years 2011-12 which is 3% lower compared to previous years. The main cause of these dwelling fires is a misuse of equipment and appliances while 34% of dwellings' fires occurred in homes with no or inoperable smoke alarm (Department of Communities and Local Government, 2012:10). There is no cost presented along with these statistics but according to the report submitted by Salter et al, (2012:7), these fire incidents and fatalities cost the UK economy £8.

3 billion in 2008 alone. In Canada, 2007 statistics show that 42,753 fires occurred in the country which is responsible for 224 deaths including two firefighters. Home fires account for 30% of all fires in Canada and 73% of all fire deaths. Similar to the UK, the leading cause of fire in homes is a misuse of equipment and appliances particularly in cooking (Wijayasinghe, 2011:1). In UAE, a 2012 report shows that there are more than 3,000 fires across the region during the fire 6 months of 2012 leaving 85 people dead and 161 injured.

The most fire that occurred in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai were attributed to a failure in fire safety and observance of safety regulations (7 Days in Dubai, 2012:1).In general, every country in this study suffered enormous losses from the fire that can be avoided in the first place. According to Cote (2003:441), basic ignorance of fire safety and carelessness is responsible for so many unwanted fires thus fire safety education plays an important role in reducing fire and enhancing fire safety.

It is, therefore, necessary to focus on prevention where community knowledge and awareness of fire safety can help reduce the occurrence of fire. In UAE for instance, the frequent occurrence of fire and the growing number of fatalities may be reduced by an effective community fire safety strategy. The question however is what community fire safety strategy is applicable in UAE considering the number of different approaches being applied in different parts of the world. Moreover, a community fire strategy that is successful in one country is not necessarily applicable in UAE considering the extent of application, legislative support, fire and rescue capability for community work, the willingness of other agencies, and others.

The following sections discuss community fire safety strategies in the USA, UK, Canada, and the UAE. These include a literature review of existing community fire strategy, their history, strategies, and future plans. The research methodology used in this explained in Chapter 3. The findings and results of collected information from case studies are also presented in Chapter 4 while Chapter 5 critically compares each community fire safety strategy.

1.2 Aims and Objectives The aim of this study is to gain knowledge of community safety strategies being carried by other Fire Services such as those in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada and develop practices and guidelines that may be implemented in the United Arab Emirates. To realise the above aim, the study objectives include analysis and evaluation of current community safety strategies in UAE, USA, UK, and Canada, investigation and development of risk profile that may be applied to UAE, comparative analysis of practices in different countries, and creation of proposal that can help UAE further improve its community fire safety. 1.3 Rationale and Significance of this Study Fire statistics are regularly collected and produced by countries around the world and in the comparison conducted by the World Fire Statistics in 2005 suggest that the number of fire deaths per 100,000 persons in majority of countries including USA, UK, Canada, Singapore, France, and other European countries is in the range of 0.6-1.8.

In Canada for instance, fire kills around 338 people in 2001 alone and averaging about 300 persons per year. However, in 2003, fire statistics in Canada as well as the United States shows some decline in fire-related deaths (Yung, 2008:25) as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1- Fire-related deaths statistics for USA and Canada in 2003 (Yung, 2008) Analysis of the United Kingdom fire statistics in 2010-2011 suggest that majority of fire-related deaths occurred in buildings where around 11,000 people died (Communities and Local Government, 2011:19).

The leading causes of fires on the other hand are attributed to careless handling of fire and hot substances such as cigarettes, cooking, and so on. However, similar to USA and Canada, these fire-related shows a general downward trend compared to the previous years. For instance, highest recorded fire-related deaths in UK was in 1979 with 1, 096 but in fell to about 500 in 2000 and just over 400 in 2011. These declines generally suggest improvement in fire safety and efforts to prevent fire and reduce fatalities of the fire and rescue service.

For instance, according to Cullingworth (2004:273), community fire safety in the United Kingdom includes meeting with people and raising awareness of fire safety. The fire and rescues adopted outreach working and educate the public by distributing leaflets, door-to-door canvassing, home fire safety checks, and fitting of smoke alarms. Supported by legislations, the fire and rescue service visit and inspect workplaces and buildings frequently visited by the public to ensure compliance with fire safety law.

They issue fire certificates when a certain building complies with the regulated standard of fire safety and continuously planning, preparing, and training for possible large-scale emergencies. Similarly, the United States through the USA Fire Administration developed its own fire prevention program and committed to educating the community about fire safety. The USA community fire safety program is specific to local fire problems and people who are most likely to be victims of fire. On the other hand, the USA Fire Administration strengthens partnership with the community and encouraging involvement in the planning process and solutions to fire problems.

These community fire safety initiatives are measured and regularly evaluated for effectiveness and necessary improvement (USA Fire Administration, 2007:2). More importantly, the decline in fire-related deaths in the United States according to the USA Fire Administration (2007:2) is mainly due to the efforts made to educate the public. Clearly, community fire safety initiatives have something to do in the continuous reduction of fire and related deaths and injuries. 1.4 Research Questions In order to realise the aim of this study, the following research questions were formulated in line with the information that must be retrieved in order to facilitate comparison and generalisation of community fire safety initiatives in the fire and rescue service.