- Author
- Geneva Association
- Title
- World Fire Statistics.
- Coporate
- Geneva Assoc., CH-1208 Geneva
- Journal
- Geneva Association Information Newsletter, No. 21,
- Report
- Bulletin 21, October 2005, 12 p.
- Keywords
- fire statistics | fire losses | death | fire fighting | fire insurance | fire protection | costs | fire safety
- Identifiers
- achieving a higher international profile; direct fire losses; indirect fire losses; UN scheme endorsed; European parliament and fire costs; European Fire Safety Action Program; conferences organised and/or sponsored by The Geneva Association
- Abstract
- The main object of the World Fire Statistics Centre (WFSC) has always been to encourage national governments to adopt strategies aimed at reducing fire costs. In this, the USA has led the field, with its ground breaking report, America Burning (1973), which inter alia resulted in regular exercises to estimate total US fire costs. This latter example has been followed by WFSC at the international level, and later by individual country studies in Canada, the UK and Denmark. Then in 1995 another international body, CTIF began its own rather different fire statistics scheme, now covering over 50 countries, and last year an EU Fire Safety Network was set up, following a collaborative study co-funded by the EC Commission. The Network, manned by government personnel, aims to interchange news, views and statistics on fire safety matters so as to be able to learn from each others' experience. Finally, this year has seen a proposal for the formation of a World Fire Strategy Group. All this augurs well for raising the international profile of fire safety among policy makers.