Fire Safe Europe
24 Feb 2021
On 22 January the Consortium of the Pilot Project Closing Data Gaps And Paving The Way For Pan-European Fire Safety Efforts (EUFireStat) presented its first progress report to a variety of stakeholders. This report focuses on the first five months of the project and on Task 0,1 and 2.
The aim of each task was:
Task 0: Gathering all the knowledge of the consortium members regarding fire statistics (source of the data, who is responsible, definition of data set, etc.) and definition of issues and limitations.
Task 1:Â Create a complete inventory of the terminology used and the fire data collected on fire causes, causalities, damages, fire safety, fire prevention etc. by different authorities and by each EU Member States and the USA, Canada, Norway and Australia.
Task 2: Develop a questionnaire for consulting regulators and other stakeholders about the fire data needed for decision-making.
Regarding Task 0, the report reveals that no EU country seems to use a methodology for dealing with missing data, although it is acknowledged those might compromise data quality. It also shares that because of the differences in data collection systems, comparing fire data between countries is most useful in describing the global fire safety situation rather than in informing evidence-based planning and prevention efforts. The report notes that differences in terminology exist even within the same country due to a lack of official definitions. It adds that the quantity of information to collect is influenced by available resources and the capacities of collectors. The report highlights that many countries may be unaware of the important limitations of their data and collection systems. It estimates that Russia, Spain, Sweden and the UK provide data with high confidence level.
For Task 1 the report deals with the progress made from 22nd September 2020 to date. It states that important challenges in accomplishing Task 1 have been language barriers, confidentiality policies and private databases. The report presents 32 completed summary tables on the statistics of EU, European and non-European countries.
Finally, on Task 2 the report shares that the questionnaire to assess the needs and views of EU Member States on the collection of fire statistics has been sent to national stakeholders end of November 2020. The Consortium expects to receive more answers to the questionnaire. The replies will be analysed and inform a proposal about which fire data would need to be collected in all EU Member States to provide meaningful datasets for allowing legislative and other policy decisions on fire safety at the Member States and at EU level.