Fired Up About Community Safety

Landers S¹*, Reinbold R¹*

1. Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (MFB)

The MFB is a fully professional community safety organisation. 1500 firefighters staff 49 fire stations in the Melbourne area, 24/7. The MFB has a targeted response time of 7.7 minutes and achieved the highest percentage of fire containment to the room of origin among the fire services in Australia. The number of preventable fire deaths is at an all time low: three for the past two consecutive years.

These results have not been achieved by effective response only, but also through the MFB’s role in community education and advocacy: community engagement through fire safety education and campaigns for high risk groups, a regulatory role in the built environment and continuous lobbying for enhanced fire safety regulations, standards and codes.

Recently the MFB has endorsed an all-of-organisation Community Engagement Strategy to further enhance our effectiveness in the area of reducing community risk. The objectives of the strategy include: further community consultation communities; providing information, skills and resources that empower people to take an appropriate level of action for their own safety and risk management; further strategic partnership building with communities and key stakeholders; increased training and resources for firefighters in working with diverse communities.

Our key strength in community engagement is the work done by our firefighters within their local communities. An excellent case study of the local work being undertaken is our Heidelberg Fire Station, located in an area with a wide range of hazards and risk groups. The demographic includes a high concentration of newly arrived migrants, various socio-economic groups, light industry, hospital and a University campus with a high proportion of overseas students. The Heidelberg firefighters have employed a range of strategies to engage with these many and varied communities including fire station open days, regular segments on ethnic radio, special programs for international students, liaising with owners of local factories and involvement with local hospitals in evacuation and decontamination drills.

The combination of an organisational framework and committed firefighters working with local communities to identify and address local issues of concern places community engagement as a key corporate direction of the MFB.

Click here to view the full paper