Supporting integrated risk management planning for the UK Fire and Rescue Services: evaluation of prevention and protection activities on commercial, public and heritage buildings

The Fire and Rescue Services faced significant changes in their area of responsibility. Community safety needs to be assured, by carrying out careful planning for the growing number of threats arising from man-made or natural disasters. This paper describes progress made by a multidisciplinary team with support from CLG and a range of stakeholders including individual FRS and members of the insurance industry as well as English Heritage. Whereas the project is focusing on the evaluation of prevention and protection activities on commercial, public and heritage buildings, this paper will give an insight to the major information sources and tools employed in planning process of the Fire and Rescue Services in the UK. In particular, we will describe work on information integration of existing systems and the possible benefits and hazards that might arise. Therefore, a prototype developed to support the evaluation of operational planning scenarios is presented. The project’s aim is to support the FRS in decision making regarding: the value of prevention and protection measures in the built environment on the one hand and the allocation of resources for fire safety interventions on the other hand.