National Fire Costs-a Wasteful Past But A Better Future

Abstract

Fires are costing many countries around 1% of Gross Domestic Product, but compared with other aspects of national waste such as Road Safety, Crime Prevention and Industrial Safety, Fire Prevention ranks low in political priorities. Countries have a responsibility to develop a fire strategy aimed at reducing fire costs. For measuring the success of the strategy, national fire cost statistics are needed for comparison with other countries. These statistics need to cover both fire losses and fire protection costs. In 1983 the World Fire Statistics Centre was formed under the auspices of the Geneva Association and with headquarters in Geneva. Its object is to encourage better world fire statistics and to encourage politicians to rank fire protection higher in the list of political priorities. Major Centre activities have included cooperation with the United Nations in a fire statistical scheme under which 14 countries have submitted annual fire cost statistics and with the Commission of the European Communities (EEC) in the International Fire Symposium held in Luxembourg in 1984. Details of national fire cost statistics are included in this paper, together with some suggestions for future progress, including a plea for a World Fire Research Council. Address all correspondence to 12 Kylestrome House, Cundy Street, London SW1W9JT. FIRE SAFETY SCIENCE-PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 1009 Copyright © International Association for Fire Safety Science NATIONAL FIRE COSTS A WASTEFUL PAST BUT A BETTER FUTURE Political interest in fire prevention Although fires are costing many countries around 1% of Gross Domestic Product, fire prevention generally ranks low in national political priorities. fact was dramatically illustrated in a study published by the Geneva Association in 1979 European Fire Costs The Wasteful statistical gap. The study contained tentative estimates for 6 key items of fire costs for 12 European countries covering the years 1970-1975. If all 12 countries had produced annual statistics for each of the 6 items, a regular European collection of 72 valuable fire statistics would have been available for practical fire use. In fact only around 30 of these 72 statistics appeared to be published. Not surprisingly the study went on to comment This suggests that little political will exists in Europe to reduce fire waste. Why is this lack of statistics so wasteful? The simple answer is that in order to monitor the success of national fire strategy, Governments need to survey the annual trends in their own national fire costs and then to measure them against trends in countries abroad without statistics, measurements are impossible and decision-making remains speculative. Yet other types of national waste are tackled impressively, both at national and international level. Road Safety, Industrial Safety and Crime Prevention all receive top-level political attention. Where political will exists to reduce waste, spectacular results can be achieved as any survey of the achievements of the World Health Organisation dramatically illustrates. Progress on fire statistics There are encouraging signs of increased political interest in fire safety, both at international and at national level. In 1981 the United Nations started a fire statistical scheme and in 1984 the Commission of the European Communities (EEC) held a most successful International Fire Symposium. With the prime object of encouraging better world fire statistics the World Fire Statistics Centre was formed in 1983 under the auspices of the Geneva Association and with headquarters in Geneva. United Nations fire statistical scheme In 1981, The United Nations Economic and Social Council, through its Working Party on Building, agreed to support a proposal for better fire statistics. The proposal came from the meeting held by the International Council for Building Research Studies and Documentation (CIB) in Athens in 1980 at which a spirited discussion had taken place on the need for better fire statistics. As a result of the CIB initiative, the United Nations agreed that the fire statistical problem needed tackling at international level and commissioned a pilot study under which 4 countries provided data for the years 1978/9 covering 6 items of fire costs direct fire losses, Indirect fire losses, Human losses, plus the costs of fire brigades, of fire insurance and of protecting buildings against fire. The study involved stimulating challenges to ensure that the statistics should be as accurate as possible and that the data should be produced on a uniform basis. As there is no uniform European system for collecting fire statistics, a method had to be evolved to bring together a widely varying set of national data. The method adopted was to draft a questionnaire asking countries to submit published data for each of the 6 items of fire costs. A list of possible