Community Fire Safety Analysis: The Inner City Estate - Case Study Example

Community Fire Safety Report: The Inner City Estate Case Study Contents Contents 2 Community Fire Safety Report: The Inner City Estate 3 1.0.Preliminary 3 1.1.Community fire safety 3 2.0.Common causes of fires 4 3.0.People and places at risk 4 4.0.Fire safety strategy 6 5.0.Conclusion 11 6.0.References 12 3.Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service retrieved http://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/ 18/01/2014 12 Community Fire Safety Report: The Inner City Estate 1.0. Preliminary The rate of arson fires on inner city estate has gone up by 20% in the previous 12 months. The area characterizes of low standard private ‘lets’ and low standard social housing. The population is quite sparse and comprises of a large Indian community (that does not interact with the remainder of the community, students from the local university and Minority Ethnic Groups (BME) many which are migrant workers from Poland who speak little English. The area is plagued by anti-social behavior. A recent house fire involved a crime related issue (gang and gun crime). This report lays several short and long-term strategies that address the issue of increased fire incidents and anti-social behaviors which have been raised as burning issues in the inner city estate community. 1.1. Community fire safety Community fire safety refers to the measures in place to reduce risks that occur within a community in four segments: heritage, buildings, environment and people1. The main strategy employed to ensure community safety and risk reduction include informing, educating and supporting organization and people and where necessary putting in use or in place appropriate regulation1 2. These strategies are in line with brigades in the estate city which work towards protection and prevention of fires. Prevention incorporates engaging the city estate community and educating them the modes to employ to reduce fire and other emerges risks. Protection can be achieved through regulating and influencing the built in environment to safeguard the environment, property and people from harm1. 2.0. Common causes of fires The common fire occurring in this area are fires arising accidentally in homes of the people and fires caused deliberately where they target homes of the people, open land, rubbish or vehicles1. Fires are common in the inner estate city and can occur in any part within the city following different reasons. Deliberate fires in the community vary. However, good number of such fires comes as a result of criminal arsonist1 as it was experienced in last fire episode in the community caused by the fire arsonist (crime and gun fire). The motive of the fires causers is basically to bring forth fire damage and harm. Other people may cause fire deliberately but, with unclear motives such as antisocial behavior act among children using abandoned vehicles, open land and rubbish who set light in areas with minimal or no monitoring or poor social cohesion zones1. 3.0. People and places at risk Different characters of people and different places in the city estate face different levels of risk following fires consequences. The table below offer details: Table 1: people and places at risk and possible measure to curb fire problems1 Factors Fire caused accidentally within homes Fires caused through deliberate acts in rubbish land, vehicles and homes Factors in the living environment Social deprivation is highly linked to fires that arise accidentally within the home. Poor social cohesion and social deprivation zones are prone to deliberate fire occurrences. Behavioral factors Frequent fires that are common compared to others include unattended candles, electrical appliances use, unattended cooking and careless smoking. Educating the people to ensure they understand these risks and hence ensure safe behaviors will be both a short and a longterm strategy of addressing this problem Deliberate fires arise predominantly following anti-social behavior. To address this problem on a longterm basis working together with the young task will be a key in ensuring they improve in the way they view their neighborhood and themselves by supporting and educating them. In addition, juvenile fire setters will be educated and criminal arsonists will be identified and prosecuted as a short term measure to curb fire hazard. Severity factors People with mobility challenges are prone to fire calamities. Such people include those who are on drug intoxication, alcoholics, disability and old age. Both long and short term strategies to ensure these people are informed and any assistive devices are provided to improve their mobility will be provided. Although social deprivation areas are core zones to deliberate fires unmonitored open spaces, abandoned vehicles and rubbish heaps are major contributory factors. The main long term strategy will be to work towards reducing the presence of such factors. 4.0. Fire safety strategy 4.1. Short and long term strategies 4.1.1. The government and the city council Being responsible in governing the city; the city council will be actively involved in ensuring that the city estate is litter free as well as educating the community on the needs of safe waste disposal. The government is of significance to provide police security in the community and finances that will be geared towards strategy implementation such as revisiting the current legislation on crime reduction and support other initiatives in the city that focus on crime reduction2. Signing of an agreement between the local public service bodies; central government and the city council to reduce death and injuries associated with accidental household fires and reduce household burglary are some of prioritized interventions that can be can be laid to bring forth community safety2. This will be effectively achieved if the government and the city council work hand in hand with city fire service and city police1. 4.1.2. Communication and fire alert system The fire and rescue service should come with an open line of communication free of charge. This will ensure the low economically community can alert the FRS of any fire episode at any time with ease3. In addition, the fire and rescue unit need to deploy methods in reference to timely response. 4.2. Longterm measures 4.2.1. Fire Safety Regulation Strategy of Fire Safety Regulation (FSR) refers to the enforcement and promotion of legislations that govern fire safety within non-domestic premises. FSR is of priority in this case because it places a lot of weight among millions of people residing, working and playing within the estate city. To reinforce this strategy the neighboring rescue and fire Services brigade will work to ensure occupiers, owners and non-domestic building managers comply with fire safety laws currently in place such as sprinklers installation in the building where risk is evident1. In addition, the fire safety regulation will ensure that those who design building comply with the new fire safety laws to the latter. Further, this strategy also involves influencing fire safety law makers, providing the business community with sufficient information in reference to guidance and advice ways to ensure they abide by the law and offering general advice on how to ensure fire safety1. The fire and rescue service will also provide smoke detectors in both domestic and non-domestic premises to always alert the community members when fire arises3. This will ensure injuries and deaths that comes in with fire breakout are minimized. 4.2.2. Community and agency collaboration In addition to the community getting informed about fire safety and risks, an excellent collaboration between other organizations and fire brigades in the city will collaborate to ensure cohesion that promote effective partnership so as to maximize the outcomes1 2. Fire and rescue service is of key in addressing community safety among the people of this area mainly because of fire knowledge and the capability to address community cohesion issues and social inclusion which are basic factors that contribute to fires frequency and other hazards that arise in a given community. Such agencies include health visitors, social workers, and church leaders1. For those agencies to be fire efficient fire safety advocates the FA need to train them on how to carry out fire safety investigation so that they may educate their clients. This initiative in addition, will increase the referral cases that the fire authority need to investigate towards ensuring fire safety. 4.2.3. Partnership The government should work hand in hand with private sectors to ensure that they work towards a common goal of ensuring community safety1. This is only achievable if laws and regulation regarding community safety are revised to ensure each segment in the community is brought together. 4.2.4. Addressing diversity in race and culture The inner city estate is rich in cultural and racial heritage, with a large population of less interactive community from India, local university students and minority of other ethnic groups majority of who are Poland migrant workers. The area is rich of low economic status class of people, urban deprivation and high rates of unemployment and where chronic ill-health is widespread. According to other findings2 such areas are prone to fires. Bearing in mind that most of these communities English is not their first language; the Fire Authority will employ bilingual advocates who can encourage the communities on the need of accessing arranged fire risk assessments. The advocates will be mandated with the responsibility of advising the community members and filling in the fire and rescue assessment form2. In addition, it is the duty of the bilingual advocates to provide important advice on the issues that surround the arson reduction in the area to their local communities by giving them information through holding talks and meeting prominent local leaders. For effective and efficient coordination of the bilingual advocates and the FRS, they will work under the Fire Authority (FA) department. It will be the responsibility of the FA to ensure the advocates serving the minority communities are well coordinated. In addition, more advocates will be employed in future depending on funds availability to ensure hard-to-reach vulnerable groups are served. 4.2.5. Fire reduction through education and engagement (volunteer team) In conjunction with the FA a volunteer team within the community will be created. The criteria will include bilingual members from each community, youth and an adult male and female. The team will be intended of the following remit: To come up with series of programmes suitable for training the community so as to address the root cause of community fires2. Studies shows that marginalize sections in the community are rich sources of young arson-offenders1. These youths, however, often do not understand fully the gravity of their actions on the local communities. Such groups are at risk of being expelled from schools or they are victims of school expulsion2. The main aim of the course is to ensure the youths who are main cause of fire risk become future fire safe citizen through2: i. Providing positive activities and role models to help participant in the course develop self-esteem and confidence. ii. Bringing into their knowledge the arson-offenders so that they understand the gravity of their actions and help them not to reoffend in future iii. Educating youths whom are socially excluded to understand the significance regarding fire safety iv. These programmes come with an aim to save money lost annually following fire and fire impacts, save property and lives. The course will include referral from different agencies such as juvenile and magistrate courts, youth inclusion programmes, youth offending teams, and local education authorities. This initiative will continue being expanded as well as the courses. 4.2.6. Funding scheme initiative A partnership between the Fire Authority and a Funding scheme deem significant in rehabilitating the marginalized young people who might not have gotten the chance to succeed2. Such group of people includes the marginalized young people through unemployment, a criminal conviction or lack of qualification. The main objective of this initiative is to empower this group of people through enabling them to be resilience so as to overcome challenging circumstances, motivation, and self-confidence1. Such partnership will help the young people get employment, achieve economic independence and acquire behavioral skills2. 4.2.7. Youth initiative The initiative aim to motivate the young people to help in carrying out fire rescue and offer advice on mitigation measure especially in the homes of the elderly; being young people they are likely to be highly fire safety conscious2. To increase the significance of this initiative, the young people in the neighboring schools will be the main focus as well as the university student in the community. 5.0. Conclusion Community fire safety is a call for all community members across all age groups, the government, and the security officers, the agencies working within the community, the regulation and reinforcing of the existing laws to ensure the society live in harmony and in oneness. Hence, community safety is not a single handed harm responsibility rather is a communal activism and practice. 6.0. References 1. Community safety and fire safety regulation strategies report, London and Emergence Planning Authority, November 2008 (PMC56/FEP 1290) retrieved http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/P-PMC56.pdf 18/01/2014 2. Birmingham Community Safety Strategy retrieved http://www.bebirmingham.org.uk/documents/Birmingham_community_Safety_Strategy.pdf 18/01/2014 3. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service retrieved http://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/ 18/01/2014 Read More