Post Fire Safety

[Carl]

Post fire safety within communities takes on different guises dependant upon the nature of the fire you are following up.

In Manchester we have lots of different initiatives that follow on from say a house fire. We call them "Target 50" or "Target 100" whereby once back at the station, I can instigate some reassurances with the closest 100 properties etc being leafleted, ether by the following day crew or by our dedicated contact centre. The drafted letters simply explains that a significant fire has occurred within your street, and that free smoke alarms are available through Home Safety Checks or Safe and Wells as they are now called and to call to arrange such a visit.

In terms of secondary fires such as lots of wheelie bins or piles of rubbish in back streets etc which becomes a problem, we can organise what we call a "Beat Sweep". A beat sweep is where an area identified is targeted by ourselves and several partner agencies and cleaned up accordingly. This will include strategically places skips, allowing resident to basically get rid of their crap, graffiti removal and the police doing the rounds offering security advice. They have proven to work effectively, even if just for a short while. 

Does anyone else offer similar initiatives within their own station areas and if so what do you call them and what do they involve. The more information you can provide the better, as I am sure there are many out there that are deemed good practice and work better than others. 

[Steve]

Go tell 'em @Aspire

[Aspire]

I guess the pressure is on, seeing as I have been summoned by the Boss... 

At the fear of writing an essay, I will write a few of our post fire, safety interventions in list form:

Quick Strike - Leafleting of surrounding properties whilst still at the scene of a fire, I find whilst waiting for FI to be a suitable time.

Hot Strike - Crews return to the scene of earlier fire and capture a larger footprint for leafleting.

Accidental Dwelling Fire Review - An ADF is triggered where, following a fire, the property is either deemed inhabitable for a period of 24hrs, a person is taken to hospital and likely to remain overnight or a number of people are conveyed to hospital. If any of these scenarios are identified, out comes the aide memoire to fill in various factual detail and parts of opinion such as the perceived use of drugs/alcohol in contributing to the Fire. This information is captured by the IC and forwarded to the SM who reviews it and decides on relevant action. All ADF reviews and actions arising are then reported monthly to the respective area DAC's.

Postcode lookup - We have system that allows us to do a lookup on Brigade interactions by postcode. This is a fantastic tool as it will assist in the identification of incident trends and will let you know dates of previous Home Fire Safety Visits (HFSV) at the premises you're interested in. I will always run one of these for anything between 5 and 8 years following a fire and interrogate to see if we require any further interventions. It can be exported to Excel or PDF for manipulation and reporting 'up the chain' respectively.

Safeguarding - This will form a more significant amount of work than you may think, certainly in the 'Borough of Fire', where I work, and will most often take the guise of hoarding. I never imagined doing this much safeguarding when I joined, but it's happened and having a Senior Social Worker for a sister has meant I have really embraced it to the point where I can list some of my vulnerable adresses without the need for a computer. We have good links with the Adult Social Services department and on the discovery of hoarders that are over 5 on our Clutter Image Rating (pictures of how bad a room is rated 1-9), the officer should trigger a 'Serious Outstanding Risk' with their SM as part of an ensuing HFSV and contact the social to see if the occupant is known. Should this person not be known, a referral will be made with the intention of getting them some assistance. A smoke alarm will be fitted in every room and an entry made on our Operational Risk Database (MDT's). We will have a tactful chat with the person about there 'belongings' to find out if they are willing to be supported to get rid of some of it and we may very well attend a multi agency visit. The main thing is that the referral is made ASAP and that the smoke alarms go up.

Assisted Living Technology - A newer phenomenon that we are trying to get out there with some of our council care line partners. We have a catalogue of providers of this technology that help people to maintain independence. This may be in the guise of remote fall monitors or devices that mean the gas on a cooker can't be turned on inadvertently.

Hotspot Reporting - Another of our data analysis tools used for prevention activities. Every month, I receive a hotspot excel spread for the previous month that contains a pivot table. Put simply, it means we can search our station ground for all incidents attended by stop code. It will then all the postcodes and how many occurrences of that stop code, you can delve into the postcode and see actual addresses too. So another tool that gives you very recent data on what localities your calls are happening. With this, I can scrutinise all of the Primary Fires for our station ground in the previous month and plan prevention activities accordingly. When used properly, trends will be quickly identified and if a particular spate of incidents was missed via word of mouth, maybe through standby officers, then correct use of the hotspot reporting pivot table will reveal any concerns.

My aim wasn't to write an essay and I am sure I failed, but I can be a bit wordy, what can I say

How was it Boss @Steve

[Cashybai]

8/10 Aspire..  Don't forget under safeguarding all our other at risks such as vulnerables/abuse cases and also our visual audits/potential arson target visits.......

I'm taking the mick, good show old boy....Steve, the boys got promise.....

[Aspire]

I got to highlight where I said 'will most often take the guise of hoarding', and I produced that from the other side of the world too! 

Thanks for the vote of confidence from a seasoned pro such as yoursef though!

[Steve]

On ‎15‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 15:15, Aspire said:

My aim wasn't to write an essay and I am sure I failed, but I can be a bit wordy, what can I say

How was it Boss @Steve

Always better coming from the horse's mouth, I couldn't have said it better myself. But seriously, better it comes from a WM in my Borough than me sitting here spouting about what should happen. To give credit to Aspire, they have their work cut out at Shoreditch, it busy, they are out on the road much longer than anyone else apart form a handful of other central London stations; With the combination of calls, visits and the awful journey times in terminally gridlocked Central London that eats away hours of every day... literally, they can lose 3 plus hours of the day just 'coming back' I've looked at the data and a simple AFA which may take 5 mins to get to, 6 or 7 minutes to deal with can then take 25 or 30 minutes to get back.... do that 6, 8, 10 times you can see where the hours go.

Plenty of other stations, including some watches in my own Borough are not this pro-active.... but there is a new 'Chief of audit and training' who is going to be lifting some well 'bedded' old rocks in the coming months with the potential of some local discomfort. I'm determined to had the Borough over next Summer in a shiny and well-oiled state, because remembering the old adage "You are only as good as your last f**k up" It’s the day to day health of your legacy that people taste and feel opposed to the nice things they say at your retirement

[BFoster875]

Just a quick question for Carl , with regards to the "beat sweeps", is that the technical term? What other partnership agencies are we looking at? Local council? Pcso presence provided by GMP? . Had a brain wave for my application ??

[Noddy]

Interesting stuff.  I like the skip idea in GMC. 

[Carl]

5 hours ago, BFoster875 said:

Just a quick question for Carl , with regards to the "beat sweeps", is that the technical term? What other partnership agencies are we looking at? Local council? Pcso presence provided by GMP? . Had a brain wave for my application ??

Not sure a technical term is needed, its just what they are called. This link gives you an idea of a recent one which is well documented and going as far back as 2008 as detailed here.