Is the perceived risk of fire-related injury and trust in local authorities affected by rescue services’ actual ability?

Abstract

Rescue services are one of the most crucial actors in providing fire-related societal protection, particularly in terms of response times. To achieve this, considerable funding and/or full-time organisations are required – something that is not always feasible and leads to differences in rescue service related protection in different municipalities. In turn, the question is how such variations affect the perceived risk of being injured in a residential fire and levels of general institutional trust in the municipality. By utilising a dataset on risk perception and trust, combined with data on the ability and structure of municipal rescue services, this study can show that a municipal’s average perception of the risk of attaining a fire-related injury closely follows response times – indicating that individuals living in areas with less societal protection are aware of this fact. However, the results also indicate that general institutional trust and perception of risk on a municipal level seems to relate to each other in such a way that municipal types (with similar sociodemographic characteristics and rescue service ability) congregate around similar levels of perceived risk and trust. In turn, this study therefore indicates that perceived risk and trust differs in different municipalities and that efficiency measurements not necessarily encompass all these differences.