Tutor Viewpoint - Arson and Education

Dr N J A Gutteridge PhD, MIOSH, RSP

The School

The total loss of a school building by fire can be a traumatic and devastating experience. Unfortunately, this is an all too common occurrence and leaves a trail of educational programme disruption. There is the loss of children's coursework, teachers' curriculum plans and teaching notes, and other irreplaceable documents, reports and records. Damage often results in computerised documentation losses with valuable IT systems and equipment left unusable.

The list of physical damage and related problems can easily go on but of more concern is the effect on people. Depending on the particular circumstances such as a fire during school hours, there can always be injuries or worse arising from a fire and its products of combustion. There are additional pressures for those who have school management responsibilities. One immediate priority is to resurrect the children's schooling in another suitable location. Parents and guardians face challenges to domestic and work arrangements and their children face an uncertain time particularly when close to examination dates. The impact of the loss of the facilities affects other existing community arrangements, i.e. evening adult education and business groups meetings.

A large majority of fires in schools are due to arson and a high proportion of these are caused by children. In this article, the profiles of the arsonists will have to be omitted. We can only state, that fires are often motivated by anger, revenge, status making or just the excitement. Therefore, we will look at the questions of what is the problem, what are some of the solutions and to start with, what is arson?

What is Arson?

To use fire to destroy or damage property is the offence arson as found in Section 1(3) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. The maximum sentence for arson is life imprisonment. The Act created three general criminal damage offences: simple damage, dangerous damage and damage caused by fire so that since 1971, arson has been set in the general context of criminal damage. The UK term for arson is fire-raising - malicious burning to destroy property. The term fire setters refers to people who start deliberate fires.

The Problem

The fact is that on average, three schools each day experience an arson attack in the UK. The attacks can occur at any time and mostly happen after school hours. However, figures show that fires during school time are now increasing and stand close to a third of all arson incidents. The physical damage costs have been quoted by Zurich Municipal (see http://www.zurich.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E73F6D6A-DE59-4944-8656-0B
78FD3E4DF7/0/fightingthefirefinal05.pdf) and are estimated at £83 million for 2004, which is comparable to the cost of building 80 new primary schools or employing more than 2500 teachers.

The Solution

Arson Management Plan

How vulnerable is the school premises to intrusion? The school governing body must assess this and the potential for deliberate fire setting. There are four steps, namely, the control of premises entry, access into the building, reduction of arson opportunities and the minimisation of fire damage to the school. These steps will entail assessments of both security and fire risks.

The Government crime reduction website has a risk assessment sheet (see http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/toolkits/an08-table15.htm) to aid schools in conducting this type of risk assessment. Advice from the local fire service and/or insurance company should be noted so that together with the local education authority, measures that are likely to be considered are also cost effective.

Sprinkler Systems

A high-level of support has been voiced for a sprinkler system for both life safety and building protection since it can be an effective combined fire detection and suppression system. It has been estimated that losses from fires in buildings protected with sprinklers are one-tenth of those in non-sprinkler protected buildings. Jim Fitzpatrick MP stated to the All Party Parliamentary Fire & Rescue Group on 6 February 2006 that the sprinkler role in schools is being considered by the Department for Education and Skills.

Zurich Municipal Insurance has provided two brief case studies of arson in schools which demonstrated the marked value of installed sprinklers.

Case Study 1

At Ordsall School, Salford on 13 January 2001, youths managed to break into the school and set fire to the furniture in a classroom. Even though the fire service was alerted right away, 18 classrooms were damaged by the fire, heat and smoke. The fire was tackled using five jets of water and eight fire service appliances. Due to this fire-raising, the school was closed and later demolished.

In this second case study, the circumstances had much in parallel and so indicated the importance of a localised fire being contained by a localised sprinkler head.

Case Study 2

At Haughton Mill School, Oldham on Sunday, 1 October 2000, youths broke into the building and set light to cardboard boxes. The fire service was alerted straightaway. Two fire service appliances arrived but no fire fighting equipment was required - this school had been fitted with a sprinkler system. The fire triggered one sprinkler head, which was effective enough to control and extinguish the fire. Only one classroom was damaged and the school was open to pupils on Monday morning.

In their publication, Protecting our Future: Looking after our Schools - A guide to Fire Protection 2005 , Zurich Municipal state that:

"Today's technology can ensure sprinkler solutions are cost effective, tamperproof and discrete, but only approximately 200 schools are sprinkler protected".

Security Through Design

Ensuring arson protection in schools is not just about sprinklers and mitigating the effect of the fire. An effective UK police initiative, (Secured by Design: see http://www.securedbydesign.com/pdfs/schools.pdf ) to reduce crime by use of effective crime prevention and security standards, has been applied to education establishments. The Secured by Design guide for schools, revised in 2004, gives valuable information on how to establish and maintain a safe and secure environment in schools. This document is issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers and is supported by the Home Office.

The laudable objective is to reduce the opportunity for crime and antisocial behaviour and to reduce the fear of crime in schools without creating a 'fortress environment'.

Education Programmes

All the above plans and actions deal with fire-raising and not with the fire setter. A vitally important step to build-in arson prevention is via an educational route. Two distinct approaches have been used; firstly as part of a school child's classroom teaching plan and the second, an education programme with the aim of a behaviour change for offenders.

Within the school, many studies have been reported on the value of young children meeting with fire safety professionals in uniform and hearing the stories of rescues and the seriousness of fires. The other programmes are useful so as to raise awareness of the problem of fire setting and its social, financial and emotional consequences for a school, its neighbours and the local community.

Programmes have been provided for re-offenders. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's News release on 23 January 2006 (see http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1002882&PressNoticeID=2060) refers to the Staffordshire Xtinguish programme for young fire setters that has had a 100% success rate together with a subsequent falling of arson levels across the county. This programme has helped young people who had been convicted at youth courts for arson-related incidents. The sessions are given by trained Fire and Rescue Service personnel who help offenders to understand the consequences of their actions and bring about a change in attitude towards crime.

In Conclusion

Training for a child's entry into the outside world is the purpose of a school education. Hopefully, at the time a young person ventures into the world of work - where they will spend a great part of their future lives - they will be equipped with a realistic perception of risks, an appreciation of the implications of their actions and to have developed an adult responsibility.

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