In my last blog, I addressed what can be done to reduce the mounting fire losses in small town Saskatchewan (you can find it here). Sadly, as I write this, the local media is reporting that yet another landmark hotel has gone up in flames and is a total loss. This time it’s happened in the nearby town of Cabri. Here is a list of reasons from my perspective as to why little is being done to prevent fires in many smaller communities.
Please note: the purpose of the article is to provide information, foster discussion and to be thought provoking. The ideas expressed are my own opinions and perspectives. This is not a scientific analysis, and no responsibility or blame is implied toward any person, entity, municipality or government official, or municipal government office.
The Provincial Government
Reason # 1 – The Fire Safety Act has no stated Penalty or Consequence to Municipalities for Failure to Enforce the National Fire Code within its Jurisdiction.
- It is clear in Section 15(1) of the Fire Safety Act that municipalities are required to administer and enforce the Act. The National Fire Code is an adopted regulation in the Act. Specifically, it is the responsibility of the fire chief or administrator of the municipality.
- This is not a discretionary responsibility; rather, it is a mandatory one. It is widely recognized that failure to carry out a legislated responsibility can result in exposure to liability. This is particularly the case when a municipality is aware of a building that has issues of fire and life safety but fails to take any action of remedy, resulting in loss of life or property.
- It has been my experience that most small-town fire chiefs and administrators are acutely aware there are buildings with issues of fire safety in the community. Most assuredly, there are many more that they are unaware of.
- The all-too-common consequences for failure to enforce fire and building codes are loss of life, loss of property, and community disruption.
Reason #2 – Few Provincially Mandated Fire and Life Safety Inspections of Particular Occupancies
- Other than licensed private care facilities and daycares, and unlike some other provinces, Saskatchewan does not mandate that certain occupancies receive fire and life safety inspections. This includes even its own hospitals, long term care facilities, schools and subsidized housing units.
- Manitoba mandates regular fire and life safety inspections of all hospitals, personal care homes, elderly persons housing, MLCC licensed establishments, restaurants with living quarters, schools, daycares, and assembly occupancies.
- British Columbia mandates that municipalities must provide for regular fire and life safety inspections of all hotels, apartments, stratas, and public buildings.
- Saskatchewan delegates the mandating of fire and life safety inspections within a community to the local council, administrator and fire chief.
- Alberta provides a comprehensive system of support, resources, inspector training, and oversight through a Safety Codes Council for the application and enforcement of its fire code throughout the province. This includes a list of government approved accredited inspection agencies as an added resource for small municipalities.
“Local governments should undertake their own critical analysis and make a conscious choice (based on policy review, consideration of capacity, resources, etc.) in determining the type of inspection service they provide that will best achieve the objectives of community safety.
By following a reasonable process to develop a regular system of inspection, the municipality or other local government may avoid (1) having someone look to the courts for redress against them and (2) the courts determining:
a) what the standard of ought to be, and
b) if that standard of care was breached.”
– The British Columbia Fire Services Act Guide
Town Councils and Administrators
Reason #3 – Unawareness
- It has been my experience that many municipalities are unaware of their responsibilities and authorities under the Fire Safety Act. Understandably this includes having little knowledge of fire code application and enforcement.
Reason #4 – Lack of Budgetary Priority
- Many small towns have a part-time, seasonal, or regional bylaw enforcement officer to deal with messy yards, parking violations and unleashed dogs; yet, perplexingly, are very resistant to enforcing the fire code or even their own existing fire bylaws.
Reason #5 – No Permit Revenue for Fire and Life Safety Inspections of Existing Buildings
- Permit revenue and scheduled inspections by a building official are commonplace for new construction and renovation of buildings in most municipalities.
- Revenue generation or cost recovery systems for fire and life safety inspections of existing buildings are not common.
Reason #6 – There is Little Public Demand
- Unfortunately, the “it-won’t-happen-to-me” mentality is a part of the human condition, often with disastrous results.
Reason #7 – Fear of Push Back from Building Owners
- Let’s face it – most building owners would prefer not to be visited by a fire inspector. Generally, people don’t like to be told what they have to do or can’t do with their own property, even when it’s in the best interests of fire and life safety.
- In small towns, that pushback can be quite pronounced as building owners often have direct access to the town council, administrator, and fire chief.
- This is where provincially mandated fire and life safety inspections of certain occupancies would take the pressure off local authorities.
Reason #8 -The Misconception that Provincially Owned Hospitals, Care Centres, Schools and Subsidized Housing Units in their Communities are Regularly Inspected by a Fire Inspector
- I have found this misconception to be quite prevalent among local municipal authorities.
- On the flip side, I have had managerial personnel of these types of facilities tell me that they do receive regular “fire inspections”. When I inquire further, it invariably turns out these managers are of the belief that having the fire alarm, sprinkler system and fire extinguishers inspected annually constitutes a fire and life safety inspection by a “fire inspector”. Those of us in the game know this is far from accurate and adequate.
“Jurisdictions conducting inspections in almost all public structures had much lower fire losses than those that did not; the fire rate in jurisdictions without code enforcement was more than twice as high as those with code enforcement.
Studies show the positive benefits of a strong code enforcement program. Fire rates drop significantly when trained inspectors make annual inspections of public buildings. And the fire rates drop not only from direct code enforcement but also from an overall fire safe attitude, making the entire community safer.”
– Ben Coffman – Certified Fire Marshal, Fire Engineering University
Fire Chiefs
Reason #9 – Little Support from the Town Council
- This is a common complaint I’ve heard from small-town fire chiefs. They lobby council to have fire and life safety inspections in the community, but councils are often less than receptive.
Reason #10 – Budget Constraints
- The small-town fire chief has a lot on the plate, ensuring fire fighters are properly trained and practiced for fire suppression and rescue, and that adequate equipment is purchased and maintained. This leaves little funding left for fire prevention and fire inspector training.
Reason #11 – Enforcement Difficulties
- Fire chiefs generally don’t want to be in the awkward position of conducting inspections and fire code enforcement on buildings in their own community where often they know the building owners personally. In addition, most small-town fire chiefs are volunteer, paid-on-call or part-time. They have other jobs which leaves them little opportunity to conduct fire and life safety inspections.
- Those chiefs that conduct inspections within their communities can be met with hostility and disrespect. Understandably, this is not what most small-town fire chiefs want to deal with when they accept the chief’s position.
Insurance Companies
Reason #13 – No Insurance Incentives
- Recently I made an inquiry to a large Canadian insurance provider as to whether there are any insurance incentives for a municipality that implements a community fire and life safety inspection program or for building owners that receive an inspection. Their answer was an emphatic “no”.
- This insurance provider stated that while they acknowledge fire fatalities and building damages are generally high loss claims, their focus is more on preventing theft, water leaks and injury accidents, not fire prevention.
“People do not treat preventable fire deaths with the same outrage as they do, for example, deaths resulting from drinking and driving; the fire service must shoulder considerable blame for this public apathy. Indeed, the death of a child in a fire where smoke alarms were not operating or installed does not elicit the same outcry for punishment as the death of a child killed by a drunk driver. If the goal of the fire service is public safety, then fire departments and fire officials have to adopt the same philosophy and attitude with respect to smoke alarms and other code violations that have an immediate impact on life safety as police forces and society have adopted with respect to drinking and driving, seatbelts and aggressive driving”.
– Jim Lee – Assistant to the General President of Canadian Operations, International Association of Fire Fighters, “Firefighting in Canada”, April 28, 2011
I’ve presented a number of reasons for the lack of fire code enforcement in small towns. There are probably more I’m not aware of. Although it may seem like a complicated issue, I don’t think it is. It simply comes down to matters of direction, measures taken, and priority. The provincial authorities could follow the lead of neighboring provinces by providing more direction to municipalities and by mandating regular fire and life safety inspections of certain occupancies. The municipalities could adjust their priorities by allocating funds for fire code enforcement, just as they do for general bylaw enforcement. After all, messy yards, parking violations and unleashed dogs do not result in loss of life, loss of property, and community disruption.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. A good start for a municipality would be to at least target the known and suspected fire safety comprised buildings in the community.
“Ultimately, burning buildings and their occupants live or die according to code and it is very difficult for us to outperform that reality.”
– Fire Chief Alan Brunacini Sr, “Firefighting in Canada”, June 2008
“That statement from Phoenix Fire Chief Alan Brunacini was a precursor to the change slowly occurring in the Canadian fire service: after years of unnecessary and preventable fire deaths, the fire service is beginning to recognize the critical role that the enforcement of fire and building codes plays in the safety of the public and responding firefighters. Charging landlords who fail to comply with fire codes is a necessary step to reduce fire fatalities and improve life safety for firefighters and others”.
– Jim Jessop – Deputy Fire Chief, Niagara Falls, Ontario, “Firefighting in Canada”, April 28, 2011
9 Responses
I think you nailed it, Wade!
A really good comprehensive analysis of the factors. Great reading — now we need to do something about it.
Neil and Sean,
What avenues do you see as ways to make change?
National and provincial fire chiefs associations?
Saskatchewan dropped the “babysitting” legislation years ago to allow municipalities to run their business the way they deemed it most beneficial to the municipality. Municipalities have responsibilities, but legislation (such as the Fire Safety Act) do not state “how” a municipality is to meet those responsibilities and a municipality could have any program from an active enforcement system to identifying to owners their responsibilities under s.29 of the Act. While enforcement has its place, fire loss statistics are inadequate to suggest there is a need to implement mandatory enforcement programs and even if there was some indication of significant losses, any program for life and fire safety to be effective has to encompass the 3 Es; engineering, education and the last and least effective activity, enforcement. The benefits of education over enforcement can’t be argued when the majority of fires and loss of life and injury from fires occurs in residential occupancies, primarily single family dwellings, which under the castle doctrine is the occupancy least likely to be inspected. A good public education division on a fire department is not only less costly than an inspection group, its programs have a greater reach and longer term benefit in achieving life and fire safety.
Hey Doug,
I’m glad you brought up public education because I agree it’s the most important piece to the puzzle! I also wanted to point out a good fire inspection is exactly that … public education. Sure we may have enforcement activities attached to the role but the most important is that of educator. How does a business owner understand compliance to the NFC otherwise? The most successful fire inspections are those spent educating as opposed to enforcing in my experience.
You also bring up a good point regarding loss of life and injuries in residential occupancies that don’t fall in a typical inspection cycle. I encourage you to read these two documents.
https://www.surrey.ca/sites/default/files/media/documents/RiskAssessmentToolUFVResearchNoteFullReport.pdf
https://www.surrey.ca/sites/default/files/media/documents/NonRandomNatureofFireSafetyInspectionCompliance.pdf
I would argue that your points are correct when applied to old school fire inspection programs but perhaps it identifies the need for a different approach in our industry that would have a greater affect on the needs of each specific community. It takes a lot to identify specific community needs and then match an education and inspection program to curb the risk as identified in the documents listed above. But it is possible, as you can see, once you take a look through the above documents.
If I compare Saskatchewan to our neighbours when looking at legislative requirements, we’re 20 years behind. Do we need “babysitting” legislation? Maybe not, but if you’re not going to have that legislation in place that forces municipalities to take it more seriously, than the government better provide some wonderful support to these municipalities and unfortunately that’s not happening.
Now, with that aside, hope you are doing well and enjoying retirement!
Chance,
I very much agree with you. Further to your points, here is a relevant quote from the published guide for the Saskatchewan Fire Safety Act, issued by the Saskatchewan Public Safety Office:
“INSPECTIONS
Informing people in your community through a proactive approach can be seen as a valuable added service from a local fire department. Many people create fire safety hazards within buildings simply because they do not realize they have created a hazard. Given a reason or explanation, most will be willing to cooperate and correct fire hazards voluntarily.
Guidelines have been provided for the safety of the occupants in existing buildings, the elimination or control of fire hazards in and around buildings, the installation and maintenance of certain life safety systems in buildings and the establishing of a fire safety plan in those occupancies where it is considered necessary. The frequency of Inspections will vary from one occupancy to another depending on:
• Type of occupancy
• Occupant load
• Function
• Grade of hazard
The end result of a fire prevention inspection should:
• Produce a property that is safer because the inspection was conducted
• Inspire an improved attitude towards fire prevention by management and employees
• Provide a record of the findings and action resulting from the inspection.”
The article I responded to was about legislating municipalities to conduct mandatory code enforcement programs, which, in my humble opinion, is not only a waste of time and effort, it’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I’m not clear on how to prevent fires by enforcing a code that is primarily about maintenance of the engineering requirements of the building code, none of which prevent fires and are designed to achieve a reduction of property loss and allow escape times for occupants after a fire occurs.
In looking at the two documents you reference, I can’t argue with the statement that properties with noncompliance issues have a greater incidence of fire, and honestly that makes perfect sense. However, the majority of noncompliance issues on properties have absolutely nothing to do with preventing a fire and what noncompliance suggests is a property owner who does not care and who likely has poor safety habits. While I agree with risk based inspection frequency, the risk isn’t specifically the blocked exit door as a fire risk; it’s the non-caring/uninformed property owner and while inspection at risk properties is one way of dealing with the problem, it isn’t the only way. The conclusion of the reports is important as it doesn’t even advocate code enforcement as a means to prevent fires and states; “This alternative method for scheduling fire safety inspections takes into account the likelihood of compliance, thus enabling fire services to target their efforts at the most troublesome/highest risk properties for more frequent inspection, whilst reducing the overall inspection workload and potentially allowing an fire service resources to be redirected to other duties.”
I have no idea what “old school fire inspection programs” would be but advocating mandatory code enforcement as the means to prevent fires is about as archaic an idea as I have ever heard, even if it is risk based. When the Saskatchewan government changed policy regarding prescriptive “babysitting” legislation mandating municipalities to perform some responsibility in a specific manner, the Office of the Fire Commissioner had to develop alternative programs. The Fire Prevention Act was amended and reinterpreted (much as it is under the current Fire Safety Act) to allow municipalities to develop programs that would offer the greatest benefit to the community based upon local needs determined by assessment of risk. The Office of the Fire Commissioner provided tools and advisory and consulting services to municipalities to permit them to assess their risk and develop appropriate life and fire safety programs that would (as you point out) allow “a greater affect on the needs of each specific community.” From 1992 until 2008, these educational programs from the Office of the Fire Commissioner resulted in a 27% reduction in number of fires annually and loss of life and injury from fire went from an average of 40 deaths and 118 injuries a year to 17 deaths and 60 injuries a year. Very, very few municipalities other than cities had enforcement programs over this period.
With 26 years investigating over 1000 fires, I know there are only 3 causes for fires; men, women and children. I also know that all fires result from 2 human actions; someone did something they should not have done and/or someone didn’t do something they should have done. And thus the most important aspect of preventing a fire is to educate people because code enforcement rarely prevents fires.
This brings me to my last concern and it deals with the persons assigned to inspection duties. A few years fire fighting and a couple of weeks of training on how to read a code book will produce a nice prescriptive enforcement system. Fire inspection personnel should be required to have a qualification such as Fire Protection Engineering in order for them to be able to conduct risk assessment based on fire science. You need to be smarter than the code book if you want to prevent fires. Sadly, the fire service with its attitude of 150 years of tradition unimpeded by progress will see public education continue to be an afterthought rather than the focus to life and fire safety.
Looks like some difference of opinions here, which I see as a positive to highlight what is potentially not working within the system.
From my experience, it was challenging as a AHJ to keep up with workload, and very little time was available for public education, or even extending my education in terms of fire science.
Here at Kilo we support respectful discourse, and understand that everyone’s experience leads to their opinions. We believe it is important to listen to differing perspectives to understand why they may hold certain beliefs. We also believe that times are changing, and the entire Code industry would benefit from trying to find innovation solutions to some of these long standing problems.
Like Wade previously asked, what are some ways to make some impactful change? Is there any initiatives or programs at a National level taking place?
There are no national or provincial initiatives or programs related to fire protection or prevention and probably never will be any. Why? The Canadian Constitution Act 1867 establishes fire protection and prevention as a provincial responsibility and, in turn, the provinces delegate to the municipal level. Efforts to create a national agency by entities such as the Council of Canadian Fire Marshalls and Fire Commissioners (CCFMFC), the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC), and the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC) were unsuccessful in gaining cooperation from the authorities across Canada. For Saskatchewan, government reorganization 15 or so years ago placed the Office of the Fire Commissioner (OFC) under Emergency Measures and its mandate became administration of the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program and natural disaster planning. Currently, fire safety falls under the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA), but there doesn’t appear to be any programs related to fire protection and prevention.
You ask, “what is potentially not working within the system”? To me the system is flawed from beginning to end. The problems start with the building code. Building code is an absolutely minimum standard that is applied without any other consideration except code compliance. One example of the failure, a multi-occupancy apartment building for senior citizens can be built in a location with no fire protection whatsoever exactly as if it were in a city with the best infrastructure for fire protection possible. The strategies in the code are primarily passive and designed to limit fire damage (not prevent a fire) until a fire department arrives. The active strategies are also minimal and designed to offer escape time to occupants with reliance on the timely arrival of a fire department. Performance based codes require comprehensive understanding of fire engineering, but nowhere is there legislation governing the qualifications for persons who determine if the performance is adequate. An architect/engineer has to be licensed, but anyone who works in building inspection can approve the plans and issue a building permit, so what are their qualifications?
Fire code enforcement is to ensure the requirements of the building code are maintained as designed and built, including in buildings built under an entirely different engineering code that never anticipated the changes that would occur in time. And how do enforcement personnel deal with performance based standard s where inspection personnel have no idea what performance strategies/systems were incorporated?
A fire code should be applied retrospectively by addressing the fire hazards and determining what strategy is best suited to reducing the incidence and impact of a fire based upon the conditions of the property and its characteristics. This requires comprehensive knowledge of fire science and dynamics and assessment of risk, but the vast majority of fire inspectors are only permitted to apply the code to maintain the absolute minimal engineering of the building code. Buildings are built and inspected with the lowest level of safety allowed by law with absolutely no thought to the effect of occupancy and the factors significant to fire loss are not even considered in fire code enforcement.
The initiative and programs that exist are in universities for individuals to gain a comprehensive knowledge of fire protection engineering. But that alone isn’t sufficient; legislation has to change to allow enforcement based upon addressing the fire safety problems, not simply following a code. Education over enforcement has been proven over and over and over; whether it’s teaching children in school to form lifelong habits or providing adults the tools to identify and correct fire hazards. Occupational Health and Safety require safety briefings, inspections and plans to ensure personnel are not injured or killed. The ongoing education of employees on safety has become main stream, but when have you ever heard of any of this being done for fire safety? Education is the key, not code enforcement or mandatory inspections.