ORGANISATION & DEPLOYMENT OF FIRE EMERGENCY RESCUE & SALVAGE OPERATIONS

The mission and vision the Nigerian fire service is; To reduce the loss of lives and properties due
to fire outbreak to the barest minimum” and “To ensure a fire safe Nigeria where all Nigerians
and their properties are fire safe through prompt response to fire calls timely”. This is not the
case as all tiers of the fire service both federal and state are lacking in fulfilling this mission and
vision, through poor and delayed response, unprofessionalism and lackadaisical attitude in
rescue operations and emergency situation. The fire service also has a mandate which can be
summarized briefly as follows: “a responsibility to rescue, fire prevention, mitigation, fire-
fighting, paramedical and information services to all Nigerians irrespective of status or ethnic
background to minimize the possibility of loss of lives and property to fire and other related
emergencies”. Nigerians are anything but proud of the fire service. Delayed intervention in one
of the greatest problems in emergency in Nigeria be it the Fire service, the First aid and Medical
personnel, NEMA, Police and other services involved in emergency management.
Most persons can recount the sour taste whenever they have experiences with the fire service
in an event of fire, some notable fire incidents according to Daily trust include NECOM -House;
NEPA -Headquarter Marina Lagos; NITEL -building Lagos; Defense Headquarters Lagos; Ariaria
Market Aba; Ministry of Education Lagos; NITEL Exchange -Benin city; Kano Market fire; Onitsha
Market fire; Minna Central Market, fire; Mandila building, Balogun Lagos; Wuse Market fire;
Lapai House, Lagos; Kings way building, Lagos; Federal Secretariat, Lagos; Fine coat Factory fire,
1004 Housing Lagos and more recent Yaba Tech hostel fire, this could be blamed on lack of
adequate man power, poor state of firefighting equipment, bad roads etc. the list goes on.
In recent times the fire service has improved with a report in 2015 stating that the fire service
responded to 72 fire-related calls in Abuja and 182 in Lagos, but failed to give adequate details
if the response was timely and adequate. The Fire service is still very far from being on par with
international standards and Nigerian still pray for a time when we call on the fire service we do
not hear “that they do not have water at the moment, that they do not have enough fuel for
their vehicles or that their vehicles are down due to one mechanical fault or the other”. Maybe
there will be more improvement with the recent inclusion of upgrading of firefighting
equipment in the national budget. Emergency operations are not limited to the Fire service as
all agency involved in emergency operations have a benchmark of the minimum time it must
adhere to for adequate rescue operations.
Fire service response is a complex system involving variables and constants. All emergency
responses follow a timeline beginning with a discovery of a fire emergency and ending with
closure or mitigation of the emergency situation. The variables are discovery of the fire,
reactions of the people involved, amount of time to react, weather conditions, and traffic
conditions. The constants are emergency system infrastructure and the road network. To
manage response time, you have to manage these elements. The NFPA treats volunteer and
career departments differently when it comes to response time standards (Although there are
no Volunteer fire service providers in Nigeria Like is the case in other parts of the world where
issues of fire safety is taken seriously, there should be in place in Nigeria a fire-fighters-club
which should be a citizen volunteer organization like the Red Cross in which able bodied men
and women are encouraged to be members and are trained from time to time on the basics of
fire safety and firefighting as this would go a long way to enhance the job of firefighting (2015,
News24).
The goal in NFPA 1710 (for career firefighters) is as follows: 60 seconds to turn-out, 4 minutes
for the first engine company to arrive, and 8 minutes for the full first-alarm assignment for at
least 90 percent of all fire calls. The rationale behind this is the fact that a room fire will reach a
critical stage in fire development (point of flashover) in about 8 to 10 minutes. The variables are
whether or not the fire room is ventilated (open doors or windows), size of the compartment,
configuration, fuel load, etc. In the worst-case scenario, the critical temperature is reached and
the flashover engulfs the room in fire before firefighters arrive to control the event. With
flashover, the fire moves beyond the room of origin. NFPA 1710 response times are meant to
ensure that flashover is prevented through fire control. (Automatic fire sprinklers are intended
to control fire development to prevent flashover, thus keeping the fire to the area or room of
origin.) With a good response time and adequate available water supply, fully staffed fire
departments stand a much better chance of minimizing fire damage. NFPA 1720 applies to
volunteers who typically don't have personnel on-duty in stations and instead respond to page-
out from home, work, or elsewhere. It is this fact of volunteer response that introduces a key
variable into the picture. In this standard response goal criteria are very different and intended
to reflect the nature of a volunteer response system.
In general, 1720 provides the following benchmarks:

 Urban Zones with >1000 people/sq. mi. call for 15 staff to assemble an attack in 9
minutes, 90% of the time.
 Suburban Zones with 500-1000 people/sq. mi. call for 10 staff to assemble an attack in
10 minutes, 80% of the time.
 Rural Zones with <500 people/sq. mi. call for 6 staff to assemble an attack in 14 minutes,
80% of the time.
 Remote Zones with a travel distance =8 mi. call for 4 staff, once on scene, to assemble
an attack in 2 minutes, 90% of the time.
There is a direct relationship between fire development, temperature, and time. Intervention is
the strategy, whether it is through the use of automatic fire sprinklers or firefighters.
Community resources dictate fire service capacity. The larger the town, the more fire stations
may be needed. Having fire stations implies staff and equipment. Staffing presents an option, to
a point volunteers are less expensive than paid staff, however the savings in personnel costs
may translate into a higher community-wide fire loss.