The Fire Service's Fire Prevention and Civil Protection Division works on two clearly differentiated areas.
- Fire prevention: understood as the adoption of measures to avoid a risk factor from developing.
- Civil Protection: understood as the planning of actions for large-scale emergencies.
Summary of activities in 2017
| Type | Services |
|---|---|
| Advice | 2.581 |
| Visits arranged | 803 |
| Telephone queries | 1.778 |
| Reports on work projects, activities and events | 641 |
| Mandatory project reports | 531 |
| Projects reported to the Environment Committee | 39 |
| Reports on events: concerts, 'fire runs', firework displays, etc. |
71 |
| Prevention inspections | 239 |
| Inspections of firework and bonfire projects | 138 |
| Preliminary checks supervised by the Environment Committee | 21 |
| Inspections at the request of the Operations Division, the Municipal government and the Generalitat of Catalonia. |
80 |
| Advice on emergency plans | 24 |
| Fire drills attended | 24 |
Fire prevention
Fire prevention is one of the Fire Service's cornerstones; in essence we aim to achieve two objectives:
-
Ensuring compliance with fire prevention regulations.
Checking compliance with measures established in current regulations is carried out in three phases:
First Phase. The project
Any project that is presented to the City Council in order to apply for a construction or environmental permit must be accompanied by a specific fire prevention report and plans, which prove compliance with fire prevention regulations. Fire service technicians are responsible for this verification.Second Phase. The inspection
Once the project has been approved and the work carried out, it is necessary to verify that reality corresponds to what was designed and that the installations function properly. This work is carried out by environmental control organisations, and these inspections are supervised by Fire Service technicians.Third Phase. Maintenance
Once the activity has become operational, the Fire Service inspects publicly used establishments, when they are open and have people inside, in order to check that the fire prevention measures are active and that the evacuation routes are fully operational. -
Informing various population groups about fire prevention and self-protection measures.
Another major area of fire prevention work carried out by the Fire Service includes the fire prevention and self-protection educational programmes offered to city residents. These programmes aim to inform and explain to various social groups how they should act in the case of a fire risk, both before (prevention) and after (self-protection).
Civil Protection
The mission of municipal civil protection is to protect the population of Barcelona from risks inherent in the activities of certain companies (especially chemical companies), the consequences of natural phenomena (rain, snow, fires...), the transportation of certain (hazardous) goods and those arising from massive gatherings of people.
The objectives of Municipal Civil Protection include:
a) The planning of all the mechanisms and services needed to guarantee the physical protection of people in a serious collective risk situation, public disaster or extraordinary catastrophe, where people's safety and lives may be in danger or where there may be numerous deaths.
b) Minimising natural, anthropic or technological risks that may affect basic services or the normal functioning of the city and its metropolitan area.
c) Planning operational responses and coordinating the various services or bodies that have to intervene in emergencies.
d) Verifying the safety conditions planned by the organisers of major events.
e) Participating in the definition of safety measures for the city’s main infrastructures (road tunnels, railway tunnels, other infrastructure).