The fire control district manages the Okaloosa County fire protection service. The fire department is responsible for ensuring that fire suppression operations are maintained. Okaloosa is predisposed to a variety of threats that affect business and the environment. The Emergency Management Plan for Okaloosa provides a framework that will ensure that the county can deal with such hazards. Due to the recent rise in cases of fire code violations, there has been an increase in commercial fires in the count, and this has forced the county fire department to increase fines and cost of violating the fire code violations (Zhou, Lin & Abdel-Ghaffar, 2016). The community and businesses requested the County’s chief for a strategy that can ensure they mitigate these code violations.
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Fire Code Compliance
After the fire codes were enforced in the 1970s, there has been a drastic drop in fire losses and fire deaths. This has come to prove that fire codes and safety requirements work. The NFPA fire prevention code is a useful program that ensures that people comply with the fire codes. Code enforcement is regarded as the process of ensuring that all buildings comply with all the fire codes and laws that relate to fire prevention. This is an action that is taken to ensure that citizens adhere to the fire codes. The fire department carries out frequent fire inspections and educating people on fire prevention techniques.
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"Cost-Benefit Analysis of Fire Code Compliance".
Code enforcement helps to ensure fire prevention through proper inspection of fire equipment within buildings. The fire codes are clearly stated in the fire prevention program. People get to learn the essence of safety inspections, plan reviews and environmental investigations. Code enforcement also helps in fire investigations and fire research and analysis. Code enforcement is grouped into various programs and thus used as a legal tool that ensures compliance with fire codes. Various codes will require dedicated inspectors and those that use suppression units to carry out the inspections (Zhou et al., 2016). They cover the main importance of fire prevention within commercial buildings.
The effect of non-enforcement of the fire code by citizens would be catastrophic. Failure of a fire inspector to ensure that the fire codes are followed will lead to failure of the whole fire department and city government. Non-enforcement will reduce the level of fire prevention equipment in buildings and this can be disastrous. Non-enforcement of the fire codes can be caused if a fire inspector is removed from his position and can no longer conduct fire inspections (Ward, 2005). Non-enforcement also occurs when the mayor cuts the funding of the fire department, reducing the fire prevention programs.
Prevention Strategies
In 2018, the county average was six deaths and 56 injuries per 1000 commercial fires and residential fires. This was quite high as the Florida state average is four deaths and 40 injuries per 1000 commercial fires. The following prevention strategies can be used to prevent the frequency of fire outbreaks. Firstly, primary prevention strategies are those that will prevent an incident from happening. With regards to fire safety, the ignition control on sprinklers and alarm system will alert people in case of a fire. Secondary prevention strategies try to mitigate the damage after it has occurred (Ward, 2005). Fire code requirements include smoking alarms, sprinkler systems, and fire alarm systems. Tertiary prevention strategies focus on enhancing response capabilities with regards to fire occurrences. They allow for better response to any fire incident by ensuring well-equipped emergency personnel that would reduce loss. Fire inspector ensures that all buildings have the standard firefighting equipment.
Mitigating fines and cost of fire code violations
The business owners could cross-tilize their fire resources effectively by buying them in bulk to get a better deal. Mass purchasing of fire equipment and insurance will help reduce the cost of fire inspections. Notably, the annual audit is around $6,000 to $10,000 for the fire department (Zhou et al., 2016). This reduces the funds needed for operation. Therefore, consolidation will help to reduce overhead costs and increase operational funds and not raise the taxes for the businessmen. Consolidation will help in formalizing training, administration, and purchase of fire equipment, thereby making it a unified fire district which will help reduce cost and fines of fire code violations.
- Ward, M. (2005). Fire Officer: Principles and practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
- Zhou, W., Lin, S., & Abdel-Ghaffar, K. (2016, January). Fire codes capable of correcting bursts beyond their guaranteed burst-correcting capabilities. In Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA), 2016 (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
