Fire Prevention Division

Fire prevention is a function of many fire departments. The goal of fire prevention is to educate the public to take precautions to prevent potentially harmful fires, and be educated about surviving them. It is a proactive method of reducing emergencies and the damage caused by them. Many fire departments have a Fire Prevention Officer.

In the general sense of preventing harmful fires, many aspects are discussed in the articles Fire protection and Fire safety. National work on best practices is in the Vision 2020 program.

Students are often the primary target of fire prevention. Firefighters will visit schools and teach students the basics of fire prevention. Workshops should be conducted in schools for educating students for the effects of fires and how to deal with it and prevent fire.

Seniors have been identified as an "at risk" group, especially in hazardous situations. It is important that seniors have pre-planned their escape routes and have access to emergency exits, for example.

In many jurisdictions, landlords are responsible for implementing fire prevention and fire safety measures in accordance with various laws.

Fire prevention education can take the form of videos, pamphlets, and banners. Often, the messages and lessons are simple tips. Effective and important lessons and messages include:

If one's clothing catches on fire, the most effective method of extinguishing the fire is to stop, drop to the ground, and roll back and forth to smother the flame. Running around will simply fan the flames.

A wet-pipe sprinkler system is an automatic sprinkler system in which the supply valves are open and the system is charged with water under supply pressure at all times. For this reason, they are the quickest at getting water on the fire and are the simplest to maintain. Wet pipe systems are installed where indoor temperatures can he maintained at or above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Below that temperature, there is the danger of freezing pipes. If the outside temperature is below freezing and the interior temperature is less than forty degrees Fahrenheit, the steel sprinkler piping, which rapidly conducts heat and rapidly loses it, will drop below freezing. The frozen area may be isolated and near an opening or uninsulated portion of the building. It may be a small area, but it could be enough to put the whole system out of service.

...
Wikipedia