Fire Safety in Ireland

Fire safety in our communities is very important. The fire services work hard on driving down the annual loss from fire and making firefighters safe too.

The fire services work hard on “community fire safety” to try making homes safer. They also have a statutory “safety engineering, education and enforcement” role which means they make sure business, apartments and so on are safe from fires too.

The fire service has lots of different roles, including:

• fire prevention work in the community
• building control and dangerous buildings service
• running mobilisation and communication centres
• training centres on a regional basis
• liaising with and in some cases running the Civil Defence service

The National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management has developed its policy document Keeping Communities Safe (KCS), which sets the future directions for the Fire Services in Ireland. The policy document tries to achieve a balance between prevention of fires, having the right fire protection facilities in buildings and an effective fire brigade response.