Evaluation: European Fire Safety Action Plan is an ongoing succes!

The European Fire Safety Action Plan (2020-2023) was developed based on the results of the first edition of the European Fire Safety Week in 2019, the opinion of over 300 European fire safety experts and stakeholders of the European Fire Safety Alliance. The focus was on fire safety in the residential environment and was divided into 6 focus areas which define the biggest fire safety challenges in Europe. These 6 focus areas led to 10 actions to improve fire safety in Europe. The Fire Safety Action Plan was Europe’s first fire safety agenda.

To promote the European Fire Safety Action Plan and bring it to the attention of European stakeholders in the field of fire safety, the plan has not only been produced in a printed version and widely distributed (not only at the start, but also throughout the period that the Action Plan was active), but a leaflet and a PowerPoint presentation were also created and distributed. The Action Plan was also circulated widely on social media.
In the period from 2020 to now, members of the European Fire Safety Alliance core group have given dozens of presentations, at conferences, seminars and webinars, at stakeholder meetings and during the European Fire Safety Weeks, sometimes focusing on the entire plan and sometimes on specific focus areas and action points. In general, it can be concluded that the European Fire Safety Action Plan is widely known among stakeholders, including European institutions, NGOs and the fire safety community.

1. Research gives a pathway to concrete approaches to improve the fire safety of vulnerable people
Although a lot of work has been done to improve the fire safety of vulnerable people, it has been noticed that this is often attempted within existing legislation and regulations. Or with solutions that have not yet been sufficiently developed (such as stay-in-place strategy) and with insufficient knowledge of the fire behaviour of these specific target groups. This also limited EuroFSA’s ability to work decisively to realize this action point. Due to the ongoing scientific research, sufficient information is becoming available to take concrete steps to ensure that vulnerable people can also live, work and recreate in a fire-safe manner, so that EuroFSA can work more concretely on improving the fire safety of this target group.

2. The knowledge and network is available to actively spread best practices to improve the reduced escape times of people during a fire to European stakeholders.
A lot of knowledge and research about the reasons and solutions for the reduced escape times of people during a fire has been collected and distributed. It is now time to actively spread this knowledge to European stakeholders.  During the term of the European Fire Safety Action Plan, specific and continuous attention has been drawn to the problem of flammability and smoke production of upholstered furniture and mattresses. Especially because this has an effect on smoke propagation and the safety of vulnerable residents in Europe. With the European Smoke Alarm Day, a major step has been taken in realizing the goal of getting more smoke alarms in European homes.

3. We are sure that a combined approach will make fire safety an inseparable part of the energy transition.
The energy transition has proven to be one of the biggest challenges for fire safety. But it has also become apparent that awareness and attention to fire safety in the energy transition is very limited.  EuroFSA, together with its partners, has made significant progress to raise this, but there is still much to be done. That is why it will remain an important area of attention for EuroFSA in the coming years. Areas directly related to the energy transition, such as electrification and sustainable and circular construction have the same problems, with too little attention to fire safety. We will also pay more attention to these subjects in future.

4. A solid foundation for sharing knowledge and best practices has been created and projects will continue to contribute to raising awareness of fire safety.
Awareness of fire safety is an action that never ends. International Safety Education Seminar, European smoke Alarm Day and the European Fire Safety Award make important contributions to this. This also applies to scientific research of fire-safe behaviour of the elderly. EuroFSA will therefore continue to pursue this focus area.

• Support for the International Safety Education Seminars (ISES) will be maintained
• The European Fire Safety Award will continue
• The European Smoke Alarm Day will be organised annually
• European Fire Safety Week will be organised annuall

5. The need for reliable and comparable European fire data has been strongly highlighted. (Irreversible) steps have been taken towards the creation of a European fire data collection system.

Significant progress has been made in this focus area, in particular due to the
EU FireStat project and the contribution of EUFSA. The attention of this focus area was exclusively on residential fires because this is where the vast majority of victims occur, but data from fires where there were no victims, fires in buildings other than residential buildings and data collection on energy poverty have now been added. The long-term goal of activities in this focus area is to create a harmonised system for collecting statistical data in Europe, preferably by the statistical office of the European Union – Eurostat.

6. The European Fire Safety Alliance has proven to be a valuable network for improving European communication and cooperation on fire safety.
The focus area EU-wide communication and collaboration turned out to be the one of the most important and time-intensive activities. A lot of time and energy has been invested in bringing together public and private partners in the field of fire safety and creating relevant networks and partnerships.
Success has been achieved in creating an international network of relevant partners (EU institutions, Fire Services, researchers, scientists, industry) working to improve fire safety and put it higher on the political agenda. It has also been possible to offer a platform for initiatives and projects in the field of fire safety.
Some progress has also been made in the area of ​​market surveillance, although less than expected. Stronger involvement of partners with more knowledge and experience in this area is necessary to achieve more.

Read the full report

Evaluation-European-Fire-Safety-Action-Plan-A4-version_final.pdf (europeanfiresafetyalliance.org)