Fire Deaths

The London Fire Brigade does an amazing job especially considering the severe cuts it has had over the last few years.

Across the UK 1979-2007 we’ve seen a huge reduction in fire deaths per million population of 69.5%. Since then it’s fallen even further. Truly amazing. Of western countries only Canada has seen a larger decrease. Brilliant performances from fire services. This has resulted from better building regulations, better work place regulations, changes to products to make things like sofas less flammable, fewer people smoking.

Despite that our absolute UK fire deaths per million was 7.6. The best is Switzerland with 2.0 fire deaths per million population followed closely by Austria at 2.6. Both countries have huge numbers of volunteer fire fighters. So across our UK 65 million population that means we have around 122 avoidable fire deaths each year.

In the UK we have a very high ratio of professional full time fire fighters. Many other countries have the reverse with volunteer fire fighters being the most numerous. Some have suggested that in such countries, where volunteers often start in their early teens, has created a culture in society that takes fire prevention much more seriously. To provide the same cover they have a factor more of volunteers so If something does happen the chances are a volunteer is at the scene of any incident much more quickly.

In the UK 2012 we had a ratio of one fire fighter, whether full-time (28,166) or part-time (11,703), to every 1,630 other citizens. In Austria its 1 volunteer to 27 citizens. The total spend is also less relying even on so many volunteer fire fighters.

Personally knowing someone who is a serving firefighter means you’re likely to be influenced positively towards fire prevention.
That raises interesting questions about fire risk awareness, and the effectiveness of using personal influence rather than investing as we have in the UK on broadcast media and educational programmes.

Should we become an Austria or Switzerland in our approach to Fire service and prevention to reduceĀ fire deaths?

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