Earlier this month, the landmark Global Plan for a Decade of Action for Fire Safety was launched by the International Fire Safety Standards (IFSS) Coalition. As active members of the coalition, we are looking forward to helping realise its ambition to stabilise and reduce the forecast level of fatalities, injuries, economic cost and environmental impact of fire around the world within the next 10 years.
The global benefits of fire risk reduction are significant. They include reduced human suffering, reduced losses to property and economies, reduced environmental impacts and reduced social inequity. This translates into safer and more resilient people, buildings and communities.
The plan’s ambition is underpinned by 15 objectives and 60 actions split into five pillars of activity: People; Products; Structures; Infrastructure; communities.
In concert with initiatives like the World Health Organization’s Decade of Healthy Ageing, the WHO Global Emergency and Trauma Care Initiative (GETI), the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, and the World Bank’s Building Regulation for Resilience Program, the Decade of Action for Fire Safety will help reduce the global impact of fire on people, businesses, communities, cultural heritage and the environment.
It provides a timeframe for action to encourage political and resource commitments to fire safety both globally and nationally.
The action plan sets out the scale and diversity of challenges around the world that need to be tackled. From informal settlements and poorly constructed homes and workplaces, poor regulation and understanding of risk, especially around the materials being used to build and insulate buildings to meet carbon reduction goals, through to the increasing burden of wildfires on countries and communities, the need for collaboration to share information, data insight and ideas internationally is needed now more than ever.
With an estimated 400 deaths and 19,000 injuries caused by fire each day, along with displacement of families and potentially long-term financial and emotional distress, the plan sets out a clear framework with actions that can drive much-needed change.
The plan proposes that low-income and middle-income countries can use it to accelerate the adoption of sustainable and cost-effective fire safety programmes and standards. High-income countries can use it to make progress in improving their fire safety performance as well as using it as a platform to share their experiences and knowledge with others. Something that through our global network of branches and members we are already doing and keen to build on.
The main areas where the IFE and fire engineering as a profession can make a difference is under the plan’s structures pillar. It covers:
- Setting and enforcing laws, regulations and codes requiring the use of fire safety standards and best practice in building fire safety.
- Designing more fire-safe and fire-resilient new (formal/regulated) buildings and infrastructure.
- Introducing requirements for appropriate training, education, qualifications and competency of fire safety professionals and technicians within the building regulatory system.
- Increasing focus on an enforcement framework that ensures compliance with fire safety regulations, codes and standards.
- Creating requirements for robust fire risk assessment and management programmes, with appropriately trained, educated, qualified and competent practitioners.
- Managing fire risk during construction in new and existing buildings.
- Requiring independent fire safety audits for new construction projects and existing buildings/infrastructure.
- Enforcing effective fire safety management through regulation and in the private sector through the use of non-regulatory intervention measures.
Through our well-established global network of members and branches, the IFE has a critical role to play in the sharing of knowledge and expertise, that will support the development of sustainable fire safety strategies and programmes, foster the use and enforcement of improved fire safety standards, build professional competency and expertise among all those tasked with dealing with fire and help drive the changes needed at a local level.
Our network of experts has sight of local challenges and the most pragmatic ways to enable change as well as access to potential solutions from around the world.
The Covid 19 pandemic has accelerated our ability to work together online and we look forward to working collaboratively with partners to share best practice, innovate and equip fire engineering professionals with the skills and understanding they need to meet the challenges set out in this report and illuminate a truly fire safe future.