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Fire: Prevention, Protection, and Life Safety

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Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management

Definition

Fire protection is the methods and actions to reduce and mitigate the effects and damage caused by a fire event.

Fire prevention is the methods and actions taken to reduce the likelihood of a fire event.

Life safety is the primary goal in fire protection utilizing a method or system to protect the life of occupants.

Introduction

The United States and mankind in general have always had a fire problem. What was and has always been one of the most important tools to the human race can quickly become one of the deadliest. Humans learned to harness fire for many uses such as to cook food and stay warm. But just as fire has good applications, it has its bad sides as it burns down buildings and cities, destroys forests, and takes lives when out of control.

Fire protection has been seen as early as 300 B.C. by the Romans as a slave fire department. By A.D. 26 a full-time fire department in Rome was flourishing and was charged with enforcing fire prevention safeguards and punishing...

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References

Further Reading

  • Cote, A. E. Fundamentals of fire protection. Quincy: National Fire Protection Association.

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  • Robertson, J. C., & Love M. T. Robertson’s introduction to fire prevention. Upper Saddle Ridge: Pearson Education.

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  • Klinoff, R. Introduction to fire protection. Clifton Park: Delmar Learning.

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  • Gagnon, R. M. Design of special hazard and fire alarm systems. Clifton Park: Delmar Learning.

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  • NFPA 101. Life safety code. Quincy: National Fire Protection Association.

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  • NFPA 221. Standard for high challenge fire walls, fire walls, and fire barrier walls. Quincy: National Fire Protection Association.

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Correspondence to Joshua Reichert .

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Reichert, J. (2019). Fire: Prevention, Protection, and Life Safety. In: Shapiro, L., Maras, MH. (eds) Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_79-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_79-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69891-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69891-5

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Fire: Prevention, Protection, and Life Safety
    Published:
    12 November 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_79-2

  2. Original

    Fire: Prevention, Protection, and Life Safety
    Published:
    31 August 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_79-1