5
Risk management in the community
By having trained personnel, as well as specialized equipment on
hand, emergency responders exemplify a community’s response to
risk. In fact, the basic mission of the re, Emergency Medical Services
(EMS), and rescue services is intimately related to the control of risk
throughout a community. Fire departments play a critical role in
defending their communities against res and other situations that
threaten lives and property.
Although most public re departments focus on the control of res
in individual properties and the rescue of endangered occupants,
the re suppression role of the re department is still based on the
need to protect the community’s property and population. In that
respect, the re department is part of the community’s re risk
management program. It exists to limit the probable loss when a
re occurs.
Delivering re control services to the community
A community expresses its assessment of overall re risk through the
control-service resources it is willing to commit to its re department.
If the re department is unable to perform its re control mission,
the community’s re risk balance could be compromised. The re
chief is responsible for the following:
ĵ Managing the community’s re risk.
ĵ
Providing a set of services that are part of the risk management
system (the service delivery mission).
ĵ Ensuring the department can perform its mission at all times.
Risk management related missions
In addition to re control units, most of the other services within re departments and other
emergency response organizations also conduct activities directly related to community
risk management.
EMS respond to urgent situations that are related to the health and welfare of the community’s
citizens (see Figure 1.2). Emergency management services protect the community from
the eects of man-made and natural disasters. Rescue teams safely remove citizens from
dangerous predicaments, avoiding the risk of injury or death that untrained, unprepared
citizens might face if they tried to perform that mission. Hazardous materials response
teams protect the population and the environment from the eects of uncontrolled releases
of hazardous materials. The common thread among the missions of all those teams is the
community’s need for protection from potentially harmful or undesirable events.
Historical note:
Public fire departments were
organized primarily to defend
communities against the risk of
conflagrations. Conflagrations
grow from small fires that are
not controlled in their early
stages until they reach a size
where they cannot be controlled.
Before modern concepts of re
protection were developed,
conagrations often devastated
cities and towns.
Over the years, our increasing
ability to limit the size of fires
has almost, but not entirely,
eliminated the occurrence of
urban conflagration. Today,
the wildland urban interface
continues to challenge emergency
responders with a version of
conagration.