The Home Fire Safety Guide is an institutional resource that provides residents with critical fire prevention advice and links to digital self-assessment tools to enhance household resilience.
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Home Fire Safety Guide
General Information
ISIG
A comprehensive fire prevention toolkit and guidance system designed to help residents identify and mitigate fire risks within their homes. The solution integrates a physical/digital guide with the "Home Fire Safety Checker," an online tool that categorizes household risk levels. Based on the results, the system offers tailored advice or triggers a professional home fire safety visit from local fire crews. It covers a wide range of hazards, including lithium battery safety, electrical maintenance, and specialized escape protocols for high-rise buildings.
London's diverse urban landscape, featuring a high density of purpose-built flats and maisonettes, presents unique fire safety challenges. In response to evolving risks, such as the rise of e-bike battery fires and the need for clear "Stay Put" vs. "Evacuate" guidance, the London Fire Brigade updated its guide in April 2023. The initiative aims to shift from reactive fire suppression to proactive community risk reduction by empowering citizens with actionable knowledge. The solution functions as a primary prevention tool, bridging the gap between general safety awareness and specific household preparedness. It addresses the need for a scalable way to triage risk across 9 million residents while prioritizing physical resources for the most vulnerable.
Hazard Type
Geographical Scope - Nuts
Population Size
Population Density
Needs Addressed
The solution addresses the high frequency of preventable domestic fires caused by cooking, smoking, and electrical faults. It also tackles the confusion surrounding escape procedures in multi-storey buildings and the "last mile" of early warning, ensuring smoke alarms are correctly placed and maintained.
The solution provides deep focus on children, the elderly, and people with disabilities (including those with mobility impairments, mental health issues, dementia, or sensory impairments). It specifically targets high-risk behavioral groups such as smokers, individuals who hoard, and those using medical oxygen, offering specialized equipment (vibrating pillow alarms, strobe lights, fire-retardant bedding) and "Safe and Well" visits.
The LFB operates under the Greater London Authority (GLA), with the London Fire Commissioner as the statutory lead. The governance model represents an institutionalized public safety model where the central fire authority sets the standard for local safety interventions. It enables centralized authorities to set standards while allowing decentralized local crews to execute person-centered visits. It is also a multistakeholder solution, as it relies on referrals from social care and health services to identify the most vulnerable residents.
The solution integrates prevention into the statutory mission of the fire service, ensuring households are prepared before an incident occurs.
The solution is highly adaptable. While it benefits from developed digital infrastructure (online Checker, QR codes), it can be implemented with none or basic infrastructure through the distribution of physical guides and a central telephone referral line.
The purpose is to move residents from passive readers to active risk-assessors. Residents interact with the "Home Fire Safety Checker" to receive personalized results. This two-way flow allows the Brigade to prioritize high-risk households for direct physical intervention.
Methods include the online checker, QR codes for mobile access, and a telephone help-line for those without digital access.
The solution empowers citizens to perform their own risk assessments and make informed safety decisions (e.g., choosing to evacuate or stay put based on fire location). It moves the citizen from a passive receiver of safety alerts to an active participant in the city's risk-reduction network.
The guide builds capacity by providing residents with the technical "know-how" to maintain their own equipment (alarms) and practice escape routes, reducing reliance on emergency intervention for minor risks.
Vulnerable Groups
Governance
Emergency Preparedness
Engagement Level
Empowerment Level
Implementation
The main innovation is the Digital Home Fire Safety Checker, which uses a logic-branching survey to provide immediate, bespoke safety plans based on a resident's specific building type and habits.
English, with versions often provided in major community languages (e.g., Bengali, Polish, Turkish) to ensure accessibility in diverse urban environments.
This solution is implemented by the London Fire Brigade. As such, it is suitable for implementation by National/Regional Fire Services, Municipal Health Departments, or Housing Associations.
The London Fire Brigade is one of the world's largest firefighting and rescue organizations. The generic logic applied here is that the implementing organization must have a trusted public profile and a mechanism to follow up on high-risk assessments with physical visits.
- London Fire Brigade (LFB).
- Greater London Authority (GLA).
- Community partners and housing associations.
- Develop technical guidance based on forensic fire data (e.g., rise in lithium battery fires).
- Build and host the "Home Fire Safety Checker" digital platform.
- Launch multi-channel communication campaign (PDF, print, QR codes).
- Link risk assessment results to local fire station tasking systems for home visits.
Personnel (safety officers/firefighters), digital hosting for the Checker, and budget for the distribution of physical leaflets and smoke alarms.
Continuous updating of content (e.g., Version 8 in April 2023) to reflect new technology and feedback from community engagement.
Experience of the Implementing Organisation in DRM
Target Audience
Resources Required
Timeframe & Phases
Participation Results
Digital triage is essential for urban resilience. By allowing low-risk residents to self-serve through the digital guide, the Brigade can focus its finite physical resources (firefighter time) on high-risk "Safe and Well" visits for the vulnerable.
A key challenge is the "digital divide." The London Fire Brigade addresses this by providing a physical phone number alongside the digital checker, ensuring that non-digital users (often the elderly) can still access the service.
Potential risks include low engagement in low-risk households or "alarm fatigue." Mitigation involves using targeted social media campaigns that highlight recent local incidents (like e-bike fires) to maintain relevance.
Risk & Mitigation Plan
Scalability and Sustainability
The guide is sustained through core operational budgets as a statutory requirement, ensuring it is not dependent on one-off grants.
This toolkit is highly replicable. The logic of the "Checker" can be adapted to any local building code, and the guide's modular nature allows cities to swap out hazards (e.g., adding wildfire risks).
The solution uses QR codes and an algorithmic triage system to manage city-wide risk.
Direct costs likely include development of the digital checker, graphic design of the guide, and professional translation services.
Operational costs likely include cloud hosting for the checker, printing of physical guides, and the staff time for firefighters conducting home visits triggered by the tool.
Sustainability is achieved by integrating safety education into the daily duties of local fire stations, making it a standard public service rather than a temporary project.