By Jim Crawford
Published Wednesday, February 1, 2012
| From the February 2012 Issue of FireRescue
Several of my recent articles have dealt with different aspects of a common theme: moving away from commercial inspections. We’re increasingly facing an environment where cutbacks in government funding put many of us in the position of not having enough resources to do inspections on all the occupancy types that are regulated by the model fire codes.
From one perspective, the dire economic situation has forced us to find creative ways to deal with a no-win scenario. Whether using volunteers for fire code compliance inspections, business self-inspections or some other method, the core problem remains the same: We can’t continue to do business as we used to.
So where does that leave us? I’m going to suggest something sacrilegious to the fire prevention community: Perhaps we shouldn’t be doing as many commercial inspections.
Focus on People, Not Businesses
Fires start (for the most part) where people live. One- or two-family dwellings and multi-family occupancies account for most of our serious fires. Many commercial occupancies have little to no risk of experiencing a fire.
Scientific studies tell us that public education programs can indeed help reduce risks, as well as fire incidents and losses; these studies, combined with market research, tell us a great deal about how people think and what motivates them toward adhering to fire safety rules (or what doesn’t).
Meri-K Appy of the Home Safety Council alerted me to a recent article in Vanity Fair highlighting Dr. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, a book about how people think about and react to risk. Dr. Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making.
What I got out of the article isn’t new: Intuition sometimes works to help us avoid risk, and sometimes it doesn’t. People will risk more to prevent themselves from losing something of value than they will to gain something they don’t yet have. And generally, people won’t be concerned with risk unless they perceive there’s an actual chance of something bad happening to them.
But somewhere in all of this is a fly in the ointment. Why are people so concerned about crime when they’re more likely to have a medical emergency or a fire? Is it because they are afraid of others, but confident that they will never do anything to bring about a serious incident? In other words, is it easier to blame others than to face the fact that we might be part of the problem?
I suspect as much, but I have no evidence to support that supposition. And using my own limited understanding about the science involved, my intuition might be correct, or it might not!
Go Where the Risk Is
But we already know that public education programs can work—and that they can work for the most at-risk audiences and occupancies, which are rarely, if ever, inspected. Home safety visits are among the most effective prevention/mitigation strategies we can incorporate.
So where does that leave us with regular fire code compliance inspections? I think we’re increasingly going to be forced to move away from them. All the creative ideas from fire departments that I’ve mentioned in previous articles—along with others being used across the country that I don’t even know about—are going to be the new reality in an environment that tells us the government is the bad guy and the private sector is society’s savior.
Given the fire risk priorities, we can hardly say our high-risk audiences are found in the local barbershop or a 7-Eleven. Instead, the risks for commercial properties are greatest in structures with hazardous operations, places where people cannot escape on their own (hospitals, assisted living centers) and public assembly occupancies. Fire is not a frequent occurrence in these structures, but it carries extreme risk when it does occur.
But for other commercial occupancies, we’re going to have to consider our true risks and keep them in mind when we’re figuring out where to cut our budgets. We aren’t being given many positive choices.
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Jim Crawford
Jim Crawford is chair of the NFPA technical committee on professional qualifications for fire marshals and the project manager for Vision 20/20. He is the author of Fire Prevention Organization and Management and is a contributor to Managing Fire and Rescue Services. Crawford is a retired fire marshal and deputy chief of the Vancouver (Wash.) Fire Department, past president of the International Fire Marshals Association and has served on the NFPA’s Standards Council. He is a life member of the IAFC and a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers U.S. Branch. In 2011, Crawford was awarded the R. Wayne Powell Excellence in Fire Prevention award; he was also named the “Fire Protection Person of the Year” for 2011 from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. Read Full Bio
