An organizational process for promoting home fire safety in two community settings

Perceptions of community risk assessment and challenges to implementation

Quick, easy access to data-driven community risk assessment principles and to related community risk reduction activities can encourage fire departments to learn about, conduct, and complete district risk reduction practices. With the ultimate goal of creating web-based community risk assessment and community risk reduction resources, we first evaluated fire department needs. Over an eight-month period, a quantitative online survey was administered to officers from 45 unique fire departments in 44 Kentucky counties, with follow-up qualitative telephone interviews administered to 11 fire officials. Mixed-methods, sequential analysis of the data clarified the "what," "who," and "how" of risk analysis/reduction activities, noted what specific reduction activities departments used to prepare for and mitigate risk, and named specific facilitators and barriers to risk assessment and reduction. Respondents described data use for community risk assessment and for planning community risk reduction activities; how a lack of time, personnel, and funding impacts community risk assessment and community risk reduction activities; and how to involve both firefighters and the community in the process. Innovative solutions such as a website containing resources on how to assess community risk information along with resources such as community risk assessment/ reduction education, program planning, and tools, can assist departments to use community risk assessment data in the development of community risk reduction activities.

Overview of Fire Prevention Technologies by Cause of Fire: Selection of Causes Based on Fire Statistics in the Republic of Korea

Every year, diverse types of safety accidents cause major damage to human life and property. In particular, failure to suppress safety accidents caused by fires during the early stages can lead to large-scale accidents, which in turn can cause more serious damage than other types of accident. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of the prevailing research trends and future directions for research on preventing safety accidents due to fire. Since fire outbreaks can occur in many types of places, the study was conducted by selecting the places and causes involved in frequent fires, using fire data from Korea. As half of these fires were found to occur in buildings, this paper presents an analysis of the causes of building fires, and then focuses on three themes: fire prevention based on fire and gas detection; fire prevention in electrical appliances; and fire prevention for next-generation electricity. In the gas detection of the first theme, the gas referred to does not denote a specific gas, but rather to the gas used in each place. After an analysis of research trends for each issue related to fire prevention, future research directions are suggested on the basis of the findings. It is necessary to evaluate the risk, select a detection system, and improve its reliability in order to thoroughly prevent fires in the future. In addition, an active emergency response system should be developed by operating a fire prevention control system, and safety training should be developed after classifying the targets of the training targets appropriately.

Community/Public Health Nurses' Awareness of Residential High-Rise Fire Safety issues

High-rise (HR) building fires remain a tragic cause of preventable injury and death in the United States. Recent incidences of HR building fires have served as high-profile reminders of the persistent threat that HR fires pose to public health. Fire safety is an important aspect of household emergency preparedness addressed by community/public health nurses (C/PHNs). This study aimed to address a gap in the literature regarding C/PHNs' awareness of fire safety for people and families who reside in HR buildings. A descriptive qualitative study using key-informant and focus group interviews was conducted involving C/PHNs (n  =  19) in Honolulu, Hawaii. Qualitative data analysis revealed three main themes related to this issue: (1) C/PHN awareness of HR fire safety issues, (2) C/PHN perceived barriers for HR building occupant fire safety, and (3) C/PHN suggested strategies to address HR fire safety for occupants. Findings highlight how more needs to be done to assure that C/PHNs are adequately prepared to work with occupants of residential HR buildings on matters related to fire safety.