City of Morgan Hill Public Safety Master Plan

SECTION 4. OPERATIONAL PREPARATION, RESPONSE, AND WORKLOAD

FIRE RISK ANALYSIS/TARGET HAZARDS

The cost of providing fire protection in most communities has increased steadily in recent years. This has been fueled in part by rising wages, additional special pay, and escalating overtime costs. In addition, funding requirements have been compounded by increasing insurance premiums and spiraling pension contributions. At the same time the workforce has become less productive largely because of the increases in lost time, specifically because of vacation leave, greater usage of sick leave, and increases in other miscellaneous lost time categories (workers’ compensation, light duty, FMLA, holiday leave, training leave, etc.). As a result, many jurisdictions are asking the fundamental question of whether the level of risk in their jurisdiction is commensurate with the type of protective force that is currently being deployed. To this end, a fire risk assessment and hazard analysis process can be helpful in providing a more objective assessment of a community’s level of risk.

A fire risk analysis utilizes a “fire risk score,” which is a rating of an individual property on the basis of several factors, including;

■ Needed fire flow if a fire were to occur.

■ Probability of an occurrence based on historical events.

■ The consequence of an incident in that occupancy (to both occupants and responders).

■ The cumulative effect of these occupancies and their concentration in the community.

From this analysis a score is established and this is used to categorize a property as one of low-, moderate-, or high/maximum-risk. There is specific training and a number of retail software products currently available that assist in carrying out this process. Plotting the rated properties on a map will provide a better understanding of how the response matrix and staffing patterns can be used to provide a higher concentration of resources for worse-case scenarios or, conversely, fewer resources for lower levels of risk. 2 The community fire risk assessment may also include determining and defining the differences in fire risk between a detached single-family dwelling, a multifamily dwelling, an industrial building, and a high-rise building by placing each in separate categories. Further, an overall community risk profile can be linked to historical response time data. This analysis can then be used to establish response time baselines and benchmarks. Community risk and vulnerability assessment are essential elements in a fire department’s planning process. CAL FIRE has not completed a comprehensive community risk and vulnerability assessment. The leadership in CAL FIRE have recognized the importance and usefulness of this process, but to date have been unable to complete this process. According to a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) paper on assessing community vulnerability, fire department operational performance is a function of three considerations: resource

2 Fire and Emergency Service Self-Assessment Manual, Eighth Edition, (Center for Public Safety Excellence, 2009), 49.

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