IFSS – Decade of action for Fire Safety

On October 10th, the IFSS coalition launched a new initiative called Decade of Action for Fire Safety, with the goal to stabilise and then reduce the forecast level of fire fatalities, injuries, economic cost, and environmental impact around the world by 2032.

Standing for International Fire Safety Standards, IFSS is a group of professionals and non-profit organisations aiming at researching, developing, publicising, and implementing fire safety standards globally for the construction and real-estate sectors. Since July 2018, it has gathered 80 fire safety leadership associations and companies worldwide based.

The Decade of Action for Fire Safety initiative follows the International Fire Safety Standards Common Principles published by IFSS in 2020. It follows the extensive work to bring public attention to fire safety regulations and the control of fire safety measures. The Decade of Action for Fire Safety is based on five crucial pillars: people, products, structures, infrastructures, and communities. They are ensuing fifteen different objectives, from encouraging countries to have a strong fire safety focus to facilitating sustainable and fire resilient communities, passing by developing and implementing sustainable fire safety standards and requirements, and many more objectives. Those objectives are performance-based and are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They can be reached by all levels (communities, cities, regions, nations).

The coalition’s partners want to implement an international approach to safety and the management of buildings, infrastructures and so on. The dimension of saving lives, reducing risks, and preventing devastating fires, should prevail. Across the world, contrasting approaches have resulted in significant variations in terms of construction methods, designs, use of materials etc., impacting the buildings fire safety. As mentioned by Gary Strong, chair of the coalition, they have worked hard to produce a global method applicable by all to bring improvements and consistency in fire safety for buildings and infrastructures in order to reduce risks for people.

The global plan of the Decade of Action for Fire Safety can be found on IFSS website. It intends as a guiding document to ease the coordination of actions in the achievement of the fifteen objectives. It should support the development of local/national/regional action plans. Fire Safe Europe is already involved and will continue to provide support to this initiative.