Emergency Service Managment - Research Paper Example

?Emergency Service Management Table of Contents Introduction 3 History of Fire Emergency Service 4 Comparison and Contrasting Between FSRS and SOC 5 Purpose of the FSRS 5 Positive and Negative Aspects of FSRS Program 7 Purpose of SOC 10 Positive and Negative Aspects of SOC Program 11 Conclusion 14 Works Cited 15 Introduction The ‘management of fire and emergency services’ is an important and complex issue for safety of community and people. The management of fire emergency is often addressed as the preparation, arrangement, and governance of physical and human resources as well as emergency events. In present days, fire services have extended more than traditional role of provision to the community. This development of provision within community has contributed to the augmented demand of fire emergency service management. Complex events of fire necessitate efficient management through applying leadership with expert decision making. There are great challenges that exist in present day social and economic environment with respect to fire incidents comprising maintenance and enhancement of performance, recognition of new roles and responsibilities and formation of decisions. These aspects can significantly impact on the lives of people in a community. Therefore, effective emergency service management requires creative administration and enhanced decision making which can improve the performance of fire agencies in order to secure safety and security of property and lives of people as well as organizations (Carter and Rausch 1-10). There are several programs which are useful in case of fire emergency service management such as ‘Fire Suppression Rating Schedule’ (FSRS) and ‘Standard of Coverage’ (SOC). Both the programs are used by the organizations in order to mitigate and to manage the risks in fire emergency. The paper describes the two programs named FSRS and SOC. The purposes and the benefits of both the programs along with the characteristics of the organizations also have been considered in the paper. The objective is to understand in what extent does the two programs are different from each other and also to identify the benefits society can get through these programs. History of Fire Emergency Service The first recognized fire protection in America had started in the year 1648 in New York City. At that time, the fire divisions were voluntary organizations. The substantial losses due to massive fire related incidents stimulated changes in fire emergency services in the United States. The hazards of fire created the demand for stringent fire safety systems and mechanisms and professional fire service providing organizations. The responsibility of fire protection in the United States has remained local because of its centralized form of government. The national government controls the fire emergency services in almost 25 states. Nowadays, the United States has approximately 30542 fire divisions. There are differences that exist such as organizational or technical which at times prevent many departments from assisting each other through major fire emergency situations (Smeby 1-3). Insurance Service Office (ISO) Majority of the consistent practices in the fire divisions of the United States which exist in present days is a direct consequence of Insurance Service Office. The insurance industry requires methods for encouraging the fire divisions to be well-equipped for major fire related losses and to enhance the capability to provide emergency services independently (Smeby 1-3). ISO is a profit generating organization which gives rating to all “Fire Departments” in the United States. It performs rating reviews in the field of public fire safety. ISO helps insurance organizations, fire divisions and insurance officials by delivering significant information about fire related risks. ISO has been in action since 1971 and it uses a scheme named FSRS in order to evaluate the degree of efficiency of fire services. FSRS evaluates potential dissimilarities between cities regarding the abilities to manage buildings in the situation of fire outbreak (Gillett, “Effective Methods in Making Positive Changes in ISO Ratings”). On the other hand, SOC is generally used by ‘Commission on Fire Accreditation International’ (CFAI) and ‘International Association of Fire Chiefs’ (IAFC). The objective of the program, SOC is to evaluate the threats related with fire. Comparison and Contrasting Between FSRS and SOC Purpose of the FSRS Several insurance organizations face bankruptcy due to being incapable of paying the claims for damages in fire. Many other insurance organizations become bound to make alliances with other organizations in order to pay for the claims of damages due to fire. Therefore, fire leads to not only loss of property for people, but also often results in a loss for business organizations as well. In the United States, the sole cause for loss of goods is fire. Each year, fire insures almost 20000 individuals and the amount of loss is above US$ 120 billion excluding other associated expenses. In this context, ISO stimulates and inspires the efforts of individual communities to enhance the fire safety services (ISO Properties, Inc., “ISO’s PPC TM Program”). The lack of understanding about the fire related losses has generated the demand of grading schedule by using survey in the fire safety divisions. The survey which is termed as FSRS helps insurance organizations to recognize the uniformity that exists in fire safety divisions. In order to combat with fire and reduce the amount of loss incurred by fire the most significant weapon for ISO is FSRS. The FSRS program offers latest information about fire protection services all over the nation. The investment in fire mitigation is a recognized and a reliable forecaster of losses through fire. Therefore, the insurance organizations use the information of ISO in order to inaugurate fair premium for fire insurance, usually offering lower rate of premium where risk is low. Therefore, the purpose of FSRS program for ISO is to increase the level of fire protection through providing financial benefits. The program also provides support to the fire departments and other public administrators in planning for budget and improvement of safety. Due to this above aspects, the metropolises are encouraged to adopt the commendations gathered from FSRS. FSRS rates the communities by ISO from class 1 to class 10 where class 1 signifies improved fire protection and class 10 signifies poor fire protection. Thus, communities with class 1 rating requires low expenses on insurance premium and communities with class 10 requires high rate of insurance premium on fire protection claim (ISO Properties, Inc., “ISO’s PPC TM Program”). Generally, FSRS evaluates the fire security on three grounds which are ‘fire alarms’, ‘fire department’ and ‘water supply system’ as a part of their grading. The fire alarm includes aspects such as communication system, enrolment and dispatching structure. The fire departments comprise equipments, tools, recruitment, training of employees and terrestrial distribution of fire companies. Finally, the water supply system comprises condition and maintenance of hydrants and vigilant assessment of water availability in order to counter the fire outbreak. The FSRS program appraises communities on the basis of identical standards including accepted standards which are developed by ‘National Fire Protection Association’ and ‘American Water Works Association’. The FSRS program measures key components of fire system and establishes a statistical rating which is also termed as ‘Public Protection Classification’ (PPC). Thus, in order to enhance the rating of FSRS, fire departments need to invest heavily for enhancement of fire protection (ISO Properties, Inc., “ISO’s PPC TM Program”). Positive and Negative Aspects of FSRS Program The FSRS program is meant for assisting community to save life and property from fire. In general, communities which receive good grading by FSRS can have low probability of loss in comparison with the communication which receive poor grading by FSRS. Through FSRS, ISO can appraise the expense on fire claims on the assets of homeowners as well as business organizations. The rate of PPC can differ from state to state. The FSRS program provides enticement for communities in order to develop the quality of fire safety and communities are expected to react to the encouragement of ISO. According to the survey of IAFC, the FSRS program plays a significant part in community decisions about fire safety. This program has a positive influence on the budgeting and explanation of improvement. Therefore, it helps to save money, life and property which can be affected by fire. When a particular district improves in the ranking of PPC, the proprietors and the business organizations can save money on the spending of insurance premium. As a result, the owners and the business organizations can use the extra money on development of local economy. Besides, a community with increased fire protection can easily draw new businesses, raise the employment opportunities and increase the status of the economy considerably. The program of ISO provides considerable financial advantages to the communities in order to gain better PPC rank. This program encourages improvement in communities and assists fire divisions to better plan for budgets, rationalize the expenses and minimize the properties that can be harmed by fire. Thus, on the positive side, by assisting communities in preparing for engaging with fire related dangers, FSRS can save lives of people (ISO Properties, Inc., “ISO’s PPC TM Program”). However, a significant negative aspect recognized in FSRS is that it does not consider all aspects of fire protection program such as resource availability and life safety. Due to this reason, the rating of FSRS alone is insufficient to assess the ability of fire division. ISO can establish impractical prospects regarding overall effectiveness of fire agencies. The program of ISO is therefore somehow limited in the application as it is mostly associated with water system and fire alarm system (City of Portland, “Determining Resource Needs”). International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) & Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) Unlike ISO, IAFC works in different ways. IAFC embodies the management of fire-fighters and emergency responders internationally. IAFC is the leading expert of fire related issues, medical emergency services, terrorism reaction, reaction on leaks of hazardous substances, natural disasters reaction, and search & rescue functions. IAFC assists in exchanging ideas and in developing the emergency services. As a part of developing the fire services, IAFC has attempted to develop SOC in order to determine whether a particular fire agency is ready to deliver the level of service in keeping with its duties and risks. The idea of SOC has grown with the development of self-assessment model. However, the establishment of SOC was quite a challenging task in the past due to a variety of fire services and changing nature of communities. In order to address this situation, CFAI has been formed. CFAI is a highly influential organization which provides fire emergency support to the communities. In case of emergency services, local bureaucrats necessitate certain criteria in order to assess the professional performance and efficiency of fire agencies. The CFAI certification procedure delivers well defined, globally renowned benchmark system in order to evaluate the quality of fire protection and emergency facilities. CFAI is dedicated to support and to enhance the performance of fire and emergency service organizations globally in order to accomplish structural and professional superiority by its tactical self-assessment program and certification procedure. It provides incessant quality development and enrichment of service delivery to the community. SOC is one of the programs utilized by CFAI in order to govern allocation, focus and consistency of fixed and movable resources of fire reaction forces in case of emergency services, medical services and other crisis situations. SOC differs from every division as it is developed on the basis of requirements of community and distribution of risks. The fire service divisions are supposed to fulfill those requirements and risks identified by SOC. Fire divisions often develop SOC for self-evaluation which enables organizations to inspect historical, contemporary and upcoming service level and performance in comparison with industry’s best performances, resulting in enhanced service quality (City of Spokane, “Standard of Coverage for Emergency Response”). Purpose of SOC The purpose of SOC is to maintain the resources for fire emergency situation. If the resources reach lately or are not supervised appropriately, the emergency condition will continue to worsen, turning more fire agencies’ resources into losses. Thus, in order to enhance the performance and save more resources, there is a need for enhancing the accessibility of resources so that service arrives at a minimum delay. In order to manage the fire before it turns wild, fire agencies require effective geographic diffusion and efficient assembling of machines so that they can gain full control against fire risk. Thus, in order to gain full control, there is a need for balancing the arrival of resources with definite point of fire emergency. Fire incidents necessitate rapid reaction to intervene life threatening emergencies. This is the reason why SOC is important for timely services. The purpose of SOC is to provide a standardized methodology for ensuring sustained improvement and make a review of the coverage plans on the basis of several factors which are essential for designing effective fire reaction force (Commission on Fire Accreditation International, Inc., “Creating and Evaluating Standards of Response Coverage for Fire Departments”). The SOC program starts with inclusive evaluation of the community which is served by fire safety departments. The evaluation includes demographic features of community, status of fire safety threats, historic and projected population growth and forecasted land expansion. SOC also evaluates the resources available to the community in order to increase safety from fire such as number of fire stations, quick reaction tools, recruitment of employees and any exceptional programs and services for combating fire. The SOC has been developed on the basis of several services delivered by fire divisions and the degree of risk in the community. It comprises establishment of reaction on fire outbreak which is typically conveyed in terms of time and resources. The performance of the fire division is assessed by SOC in order to determine the present level of service in numerous events. The service includes appraisal of capability and performance of fire agencies in comparison with SOC. Any prevailing performance expectations such as reaction time of fire department team are appraised in SOC for determining the level to which they are accomplishing those expectations (City of Spokane, “Standard of Coverage for Emergency Response”). Positive and Negative Aspects of SOC Program Standard of response coverage is an essential component of strategic preparation for ensuring protection against fire. Generally, SOC helps in assigning and allotting the resources in order to satisfy the goals and the purposes of a community’s fire safety plan. Both CFAI and IAFC believe that a community should first define the degree of service it requires to deliver and then develop SOC for rendering that level of service. Thus, SOC is beneficial for establishing the degree of service and it helps the organizations to provide them an understanding about the available resources. The positive aspect of SOC is that it supports in focusing on the resources of the fire department in order to fulfill the aims and the purposes. SOC is developed for performing a risk assessment of the community and assigning resources on the basis of likelihood and penalties of fire outbreak (Leinoff, “Creating Standards of Response Coverage for Fire Incidents”). The ‘National Fire Protection Association’ (NFPA) defines risk assessment as a procedure for describing the risks linked with fire which discourses fire situation, its probability and possible outcomes. NFPA is directly involved with the fire emergency safety matters by its practical groups and new standards which are used in SOC. Apart from NFPA, ‘Occupational Safety and Health Administration’ (OSHA), and California OSHA or (CALOSHA) also involved in fire emergency safety and provide criteria for SOC. OSHA offers protective outfits and tools for protection and security of people. The rules of OSHA/CALOSHA are implemented by several functions of fire divisions in the United States. It helps to defend labors from fire related threats and also provides counseling to the businesses (Cote 379-380). Through SOC, fire departments can significantly develop the quality of fire protection services as the decisions to enhance the performance depend on the analyzed necessity identified by SOC (NFPA, “Fire Service Deployment: Assessing Community Vulnerability”). SOC is ideally used by CFAI and IAFC in order to reduce the negative impact of fire on community. SOC can create a balance between risk and public fire protection resources through establishing a comprehensive procedure. In other words, SOC assists in increasing the understanding of risks which are involved in fire and therefore helps communities to take the best measures. In order to mitigate the risks of fire, it is essential for fire executives and engineers to formulate plans for the future and to certify that sufficient resources are available. As fire departments face numerous challenges while dealing with emergency issues, SOC serves as enhancing the quality of fire protection though appropriate assessment of facilities and structures. By balancing the risk with required fire protection resources, SOC can also assist in safeguarding the life of fire-fighters and people. Every community has different kinds of threats with respect to fire. Therefore, in order to ensure fire safety and security, the fire protection services possessed in the communities must be analyzed and categorized. It can help to gain an understanding about the severity posed by fire related hazards. Therefore, through classifying services and resources, SOC helps to evaluate the entire community widely. Once SOC is completed, fire agencies are better equipped to analyze the risks and to prepare the division to satisfy the fire safety requirements of the community (Agostini, “The Importance of Developing a Fire Risk Assessment”). The major negative aspect of SOC is that it does not develop clear recommendations on the standards of fire division; rather it only inspires systematic evaluation of fire risks in the community. Comparison of ISO Program and SOC Program From the above discussion, it can be stated that ISO program concentrates mainly on protecting the property whereas SOC program concentrates on increasing the safety of people and ensuring operational effectiveness of fire agencies. The methods of ISO were developed primarily for insurance organizations in order to restrict the loss of property owing to fire. Unlike SOC, ISO promotes grading scaling technique which is intended for protecting the assets. The review of FSRS used by ISO is quite useful for developing an understanding related to three major components which are fire alarm system, fire department efficiency and water supply system. In contrast, SOC mainly measures the availability of resources for judging the efficiency of fire departments. The objective of SOC is to balance the risk of fire to the resources (both movable and fixed) so that fire organizations can tactfully deal with fire hazards. Thus, it is apparent that SOC analyzes much broader aspects for fire emergency risks compared to ISO which only concentrates on property losses. The FSRS is also accepted as a fire insurance tool and is not used for assessing every aspect of a comprehensive public fire protection program. Conclusion Both FSRS of ISO and SOC program are used by municipalities in order to measure the impact and risk related with fire. The rating of FSRS is used in order to assist in the calculation of fire insurance premium rates and facilitate in avoidance of property damage. The FSRS determines how effectively a city applies fire safety mechanisms. It gathers information on important fire protection structures in a community which results in creating thorough benchmarking range, allowing individual fire agencies to better access their own safety level and to react precisely in time of fire incidents. It is the core value of every fire agency to defend lives, assets and the environment by better readiness, prevention measures and rapid response with increased focus on quality services, proficiency and security of resources. In this context, SOC helps in determining the risks related with fire incidents and helps fire agencies to raise awareness about resources required in order to prevent those risks. Calculating the budget, shortages of equipments and security issues are challenging tasks for fire divisions. Effective management of those challenges requires basic understanding of resources and outcomes of fire incidents. Both FSRS and SOC can provide significant understanding to the fire departments, helping to make effective and quick decisions along with enhancing the efficacy of fire emergency service management. Works Cited Agostini, Mickey. The Importance of Developing a Fire Risk Assessment. Executive Analysis of Fire Service Operations in Emergency Management, Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. Carter, Harry R., & Erwin Rausch. Management in the Fire Service. United States: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2007. Print. City of Portland. Determining Resource Needs, Mar. 2006. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. City of Spokane. Standard of Coverage for Emergency Response, Jun. 2010. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. Commission on Fire Accreditation International, Inc. Creating and Evaluating Standards of Response Coverage for Fire Departments, n.d. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. Cote, Arthur E. Organizing For Fire and Rescue Services. United States: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2003. Print. Gillett, James C. Effective Methods in Making Positive Changes in ISO Ratings. Eastern Michigan University, August 2001. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. ISO Properties, Inc. ISO’s PPC TM Program, 2001. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. Leinoff, Stephen. Creating Standards of Response Coverage for Fire Incidents. Hartford Emergency Services, Sep. 2002. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. NFPA. Fire Service Deployment: Assessing Community Vulnerability, 2008. Web. 06 Jul. 2006. Smeby, L. Charles. Fire and Emergency Service Administration: Management and Leadership Practices. United States: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2005. Print. Read More