FIRE SAFETY CULTURE

THE FIRE SAFETY CULTURE

Fire Safety Culture is the amount of attention and concern the fire issue garners with the public, the industry, and the government officials responsible for regulating them, and the beliefs, attitudes, roles, and social and technical practices that are concerned with minimizing the exposure to dangerous conditions. Not only are Fire Safety Culture, and its more generic concept, Safety Culture, an illustration of the public’s attentions in regards to safety, but also guides the attentions of the public. Research has shown that there are three levels at which culture can be observed: Basic Assumptions, Espoused values and Artifacts.

Basic assumptions of an object or procedure affect our attitude towards it, which then affects what precautions we take. In a country with a developed Fire Safety Culture, such as the United States, assumptions regarding the safety of an object or procedure can be made because of our basic understanding of risk. This understanding comes from issued warnings. Not only do dangerous products such as vehicles come with many warnings, but products as simple as coils of string come with warning labels describing possible risks associated with them.

With a larger understanding of objects or procedures and their risks, people can begin to make assumptions on the risks and dangers of other objects and procedures. These assumptions then guide the behavior of the public, their perceptions regarding risks, and how they feel about taking them. This culture then becomes taken for granted, and actions based on other assumptions are difficult to understand (Guldenmund, 2000).

These basic assumptions are not necessarily in regard to safety, yet still affect the safety culture. This is to say that society’s assumptions control our attitudes towards an object or behavior, which clearly affects intentions and behavior’s taken.

Attitudes are an example of society’s espoused values, along with policies, training manuals, procedures, formal statements, bulletins, and accident and incident reports. These values determine whether or not an organization, such as a business, or community have emergency training manuals, or planned emergency procedures; whether or not an investigative or regulatory body produces an accident or incident report after an emergency situation and the effect of this report in determining changes in emergency procedures in order to improve their effectiveness.

Finally these espoused values or attitudes control the final level of safety culture the artefacts are physical reactions to our attitudes. Artefacts in this context are personal protective equipment, informative posters, dress codes, etc. If a group’s attitude towards an object and procedure is that it has specific and dangerous risks, they may prescribe protective equipment, or attempt to educate other of the risks.

REFERENCES

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