CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Sokoto State Fire Service in Nigeria was established by the Act (law) of

1993and since then it has not been reviewed, it is the only statutory

organization established by law to undertake or render service as regard fire

and its related cases and to manage fire disasters in Nigeria. Therefore, from

inception, Fire Service has been tackling fire disaster related issues through

the establishment of concrete structures and measures, such measures

include: educating the general public in order to raise their level of awareness

and reduce the effects of fire disasters in the Country.

Since inception in 1993, Fire Service has been active in firefighting, fire

prevention, search and rescue service, humanitarian etc. Many fire service and

safety across the nation are being challenged by budget crises, rising call

volume, personnel and equipment shortages, security issues and the overall

expectation to do more with less. Effectively managing these challenges

requires a basic understanding of how changes in resources affect community

outcomes. Specifically, it is imperative that fire safety operators, as well as

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political decision makers, know how fire department resource deployment in

their local community affects community outcomes in three important areas;

firefighter injury and death, civilian injury and death, and property loss.

However, even with recent technological advances and substantial fire

department efforts in fire safety, quick response to emergency, the fire service

is not yet able to scientifically quantify experiences to determine the relative

effectiveness of deployment decisions, including the type of emergency event,

staffing levels/crew size, asset configurations, response time frames,

frequency and manner of personnel training, and fire prevention programs.

Concerted efforts must be made by all concerned stakeholders to developed

operational techniques that will ensure fire safety so as to enables leaders to

match resource investments and resources deployed to the risks in the

community they serve.

Since early times fire has been one of man's greatest aids to his advancement,

it gives him a source of both heat and light. Today fire is still of great benefit to

man's well-being if it is controlled, but if allowed to start and spread without

strict control it can be one of the greatest hazards man has to face. The ability

to control fire was a major change in the habit of early humans. Making fire to

generate heat and light made it possible for people to cook food, increasing

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the variety and availability of nutrients. Fire also kept nocturnal predator at

bay.

Various strategies have been adopted as a way of firefighting, disaster and

emergency management by the Sokoto state government to cope with the

problems associated with fire incidence by both past and present

administrations. One of the several strategies in operation presently in the

state is the full utilization and strengthening the capacity of fire service

stations with modern technologies, equipment, training, state-of-the-art

facilities and modern techniques and approaches to fire disaster and safety.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

There are plethorah of problems militating or bedeviling against

effective prompt service-delivery of fire service and safety management; chief

among them are lack of fund as a result of low budgetary allocation by the

State government for procurement of modern and sophisticated apparatus,

facilities and equipment in firefighting; insufficient manpower development

through periodic training and modern skills needed in fire safety unlike what

is obtainable in advanced countries; unquicken prompt response to

emergency or distress calls so as to forestall the fire outbreaks; unfavorable

environmental conditions like drought and extreme temperature which can

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lead to wild fire that could affect electricity supply; inability to employed

required personnel and other specialists trained in firefighting rather than

relying on recruit fire brigades all in the name of getting cheap labor; poor

network and congestion when people want to make distress calls and poor

publicity and awareness on the toll free number to call in case of emergency.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVE

The broad objective of the study is to examine the Spatio - Temporal

distribution of Fire Service Stations in Sokoto state in the context of its

northern city structure and to bring home efforts made by past

administrations.

However, the specific objectives include the following among others;

i. To analyze the distribution pattern of fire service points.

ii. To map out locations of fire service points in relation to Sokoto State

base map.

iii. To study the occurrence of fire incidence and the capacity to manage it.

iv. To know the perception of people about fire service and safety

management in sokoto state.

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 v. To develop strategies and offer workable recommendations that can be

put in place towards effective and prompt fire service and safety

management based on this research findings

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

1. To prevent disaster report from being eating up by rodents

2. To enable Search and rescue

3. To enhance the availability of Information.

4. To enable the detection of better strategies to prevent future

occurrence.

1.5 SCOPE AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of this research work is strictly on the design of an online disaster

report management system.

This study is limited to the body mentioned above because of:

1. Time limit for the project

2. Limited fund

3. Limited data available to the research

4. Inconsistency and unstable power supply.

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1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS

1. REPORT: an account given of a particular matter, especially in the form of

an official document, after thorough investigation or consideration by an
appointed person or body.
2 DISASTER: A disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously
disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human,
material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the
community's or society's ability to cope using its own resources.

3 INTERNET: a global computer network providing a variety of information

and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using
standardized communication protocols.

4 PHP: (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor) is a widely-

used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially
suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.

5 HTML: Hypertext Mark-up Language, a standardized system for tagging

text files to achieve font, colour, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World
Wide Web pages.

6 PHOTOSHOP: A graphic designing application

7 SERVER: A specific application called a web server will be responsible for

communicating with the browser.

8 SQL: Structured Query Language, basically used in querying the database

to retrieve, updates, and review database.

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9 WEB: This is an acronym of World Wide Web.

10 WEBBASED: Is any program that is accessed over a network connection,

rather than existing or quitting within a devices memory.

11 WEBSITE: A website is a collection of information about a particular topic

or subject.

12 WINDOW: An operating system.