Analysis on Fire Protection Investment of Rural Economy

www.seipub.org/ce Construction Engineering Volume 4, 2016 doi: 10.14355/ce.2016.04.002

Analysis on Fire Protection Investment of Rural Economy Hanxiao Feng, Yanfeng Li, Li wei Chu, Hongyi Wang College of Architectural and Civil Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124 252409074@qq.com

Abstract Based on current situation of the rural fire protection, the village is taken as a unit and fire protection investment and its benefit on the basis of principle of economy has been briefly analyzed. The survey proposes that investment region on village fire protection should be focused on fire protection planning, water reserves, firehouse construction and fire protection publicity and education etc. In a period of ten years, allocation of RMB 75 thousands Yuan a year continuously could approximately produce threefold fire protection economic benefit. In addition, the investment on fire protection of rural area could be decided in accordance with benefit analysis on fixed cost.

Keywords Rural Fire Protection; Investment; Benefit; Fire Loss

Introduction Many surveys show the fire protection problem commonly exists in rural areas because of lacking of investment [1].

Not only investment can reduce fire damage, but also life and property can be guaranteed. In addition, the safety of fire protection in rural area would be enhanced and economic development can also be improved by fire protection investment. However, local government officer does not have the awareness of the importance of fire protection investment for the village unit because of limitation on economy. This paper evaluates the economic benefits of rural fire protection investment and quantitatively analysis the safety benefit on the basis of economic principle. The main goal of this paper is to let villager to know that investment of fire protection could produce economic benefits in rural areas. Moreover, the research can encourage government increase fire protection investment, in order to achieve the goal of safety and economy development.

Fire Investment and Its Benefits Connotation Fire protection investment includes facilities investment and education. From the perspective of the fire protection investment (FPI), Safety level can be enhanced and property loss can be reduced by increasing the FPI actively. In addition, increase of safety level can bring other economic benefits.

Economical benefit of fire protection is the difference between of input and output. Fire safety benefits can be get by providing fire safety condition for each person, collective even whole society. The benefit is high if maximum security requirement can be met be control investment as less as possible [2].

Fire protection safety benefits include economical benefit as well as non‐economic ones. Economical benefits cover fire loss reduction while non‐economic benefits include social and philological benefit. It has characteristics of indirection, efficiency, persistence, potential and complexity, etc. Fire protection safety benefits are not only judged by directive economical benefit, but also by long‐term, indirect and multiple aspects.

Estimation of Cost in a Village Fire Investment For a village, fire investment cost are mainly on fire protection plan, water reserve, construction of simple firehouse and operation, person in charge and fire prevention publicity and education.

1) Fire protection plan: fireproof spacing should be left between village buildings. New buildings should meet

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national first class and second class fire‐resistant standard. The third class buildings be under control and forth class buildings be restrained in restrict. Unruly buildings are not allowed. The width of fire escape should not be less than 3.5m in rural areas. Trees and overhead lines preventing lift‐up fire engine from working are also not allowed. Investment of fire protection plan spends no more than RMB 50,000 yuan for a village which has 250 families and 1000 people.

2) Water reserve: fire pond which is an important part of fire water supply becomes more significant because of dissatisfaction of hydrant. Combined with the natural condition and the development of village, fire water supply gives priority to rural water supply pipe network. Village well is a complementary source and fire pond can be set as fire water supplement. Construction cost of a simple fire pond with the size of 8m3 is merely around 8 thousands yuan. It can be built in each family and meet the requirement of usual drinking, washing and irrigation. Certain quantity of spare fire water should be guaranteed. Rain water can be as source in arid region.

3) Construction of simple firehouse and daily operation: according to investigation, it would take 40 min to arrive in fire point and beginning to fight because there is no firehouse in the village. This cannot meet the requirements of beginning fire fight in 5 minutes [3]. Therefore, fire usually cannot be controlled at the early stage. A simple firehouse should be built in every village. Its investment includes construction of site, building and apparatus installment. No land appropriation expense would be considered in rural area. In firehouse, 1 or 2 fire engines should be allocated and each costs 10 thousands yuan. The performance requirement is to extinguish fire a two‐floor high building. Initial costs of firehouse are about 100 thousands yuan, and operation cost is about 10 thousands yuan every year. This fee does not include labor costs.

4) Selection person in charge of fire protection: the head of the village council, serving as the first‐in‐charge of fire protection, is fully responsible for regional fire protection management. One or two officers should be elected as part‐time fire protection manager to do daily work. Daily work constitutes fire safety conventions, organize fire prevention inspection and popularize fire fighting knowledge.

5) Fire prevention publicity and education. It is necessary to establish a voluntary fire protection organization guided by group leader. In addition, fire warden and fire propagandists should be elected among public. This measure would do to realize joint defense and family’s defense, developing self‐examination, self‐management in fire protection.

Estimation on Benefit for Fire Protection Investment The benefit of firehouse could be reflected on the total lives and properties saved by fire fighting force[4].

Life Saving The valuation of life saved is the benefit of the life saved by using fire fighting force to extinguish fire. Method of estimating the properties loss and influence of social production is adopted by considering mortality in accident on the basis of loss of society.

According to the law of state, the loss of the mortality by fire is about 20 times of local average annual income. The equation is given as follows:

LM=20N ×LAI (1) Where LMI is the loss of mortality, LAI is local per capita gross national product, N is the death toll.

Properties Saving In the same way, the valuation of the properties is the benefit of the properties saved by using fire fighting force.

According to the factors of the remained structure valuation of repairing after fire, the main structure should be changed and dismantled. Fire damage loss can be divided into totally burnout, mostly burnout i.e. 50%‐70%; partial burnout, i.e.30%. Loss of fixed asset in fire damage is evaluated by damage extent of outlook, function and precision because of burning, smoking, etc.

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Cost-benefit Analysis On the basis of currency as unit, cost‐benefit analysis is an economic analysis method by choosing different projects and estimating whether benefit is greater than the cost by requiring Economic Benefit of Fire Protection Investment Fire protection cost and economic benefit are shown in Fig.1[5]. F(S) is the fire protection comprehensive economic function, C(S) the fire protection investment function. Fire investment benefit function Q (S) is calculated by Eq.2

Q(S)=F(S)‐C(S)=E(S)‐L(S)‐C(S) (2) Where L(S) is fire accident loss.

FIG.1 FIRE SAFETY COST AND BENEFIT FUNCTION[5] FIG.2 COST BENEFIT CURVE FOR A FIXED COST METHOD.

In Figure 1, in the initial investment of fire protection, fire investment would not produce economic benefits. It can be found that there are low system safety level and large losses of fire. However, when degree of security is in the region between S1 and S2, fire investment would produce real economic returns. Fire investment benefit function Q (S) would obtain the maximum value in S0, that is to say, fire investment can achieve the best returns in the vicinity of S0. When the security degree is less than S0, the value‐added of fire protection investment would be less than the safety output value added. Increase of security degree S would reduce the fire investment income. At this time, it is unreasonable to increase fire investment.

According to the fire construction projects, it can be seen that the fire service investment is effective for many years in a period. The effect of fire protection investment is long‐term. In this case, in order to calculate the annual economic efficiency in the fire investment, Yearly average value of fire investment is calculated for different projects inputs in life cycle period.

For village, considering a 10‐year cycle period annual fire plan investment is 5 thousand yuan which is get by 50 thousand for 10 years. Subsidies around 10 thousand yuan every year can be used by village collective investment in the construction of the fire water reservoir. Firehouse investment annually is about 10 thousand yuan. Its annual operating costs (maintenance, update) are 10 thousand yuan. Full‐time fire chief annual wage is about 20 thousand yuan. Supervision, publicity and education cost 10 thousand yuan a year in each village. During the 10 years, the annual investment costs 75 thousand yuan. It can be carried out partly from the financial allocation, the Government Fire special funds, transformation of rural power and other expenses. Basically, construction of fire‐fighting facilities does not become a heavy financial burden on the village collective.

The economic benefit of fire fighting is taken into account the loss caused by a fire loss. If a fire happened in a rural area and burned down an 80m2 three houses of middle‐income families. Fire caused serious damage to the structure of the house and property cannot be rescued in time. Fortunately, there was no casualty. Preliminary estimation of losses are given as follows:1) Housing (50 percent damage level) repairs, renovation need 150 thousands, yuan; 2) Household appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, furniture, etc.) costs 30 thousand yuan; 3) Fire suppression costs 3 thousand yuan; 4) Due to repair the house, family members’ (one 3

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months) loss of working time is about 5 thousand yuan. Total loss of fire of is about 188 thousand yuan. Due to the fire, some items would not be up to standard and the village became backward in advanced competitions/ Government subsidies and incentives would be reduced for the village. For example, because of fire protection in ʹone‐vote vetoʹ, collective rating would lose about 30 thousand yuan. This part can be equivalent to the security value‐added E(S). Adding these losses together, total loss due to inadequate fire safety measures would be 218, thousand yuan. Benefit of fire investment Q(S) is 43 thousand yuan which is get by 218 minus 75. Benefit ratio Q/C value was 2.99 which is get by 21.8 divided by 7.5.

Fixed Program Cost‐benefit Analysis Fire‐benefit analysis of village‐level could use fixed cost method. In rural areas, fire protection investment is mainly government and collective investment. There is a little change in single user input. The provisions of the national government should adopt a fixed cost accounting for collective investment.

Figure 2 shows the cost‐benefit curve when the cost of the project is fixed. The better benefit is the preferred scheme. In this figure, C1 and C2 are two different schemes. When the cost is fixed at C0 benefits of these two schemes are V0. When the cost is fixed at C1 the scheme I is an optimal scheme because of V2 is greater than V1; when the fixed cost is C2, scheme II is an optimal scheme because V1 is greater than V2. In rural areas, people can select an optimal benefit scheme according to the actual situation in the fire planning, simple fire station construction, full time fire responsibility of people and propaganda and education of fire‐protection.

Conclusion 1) In order to increase the current level of rural firefighting, ongoing fire inputs are needed. If a village is selected as a unit 75 thousand yuan of per year investment in a 10‐year cycle would be possible to achieve good economic returns every year.

2) Program in a fixed cost method can be used to analyze programs in rural fire. Based on the available investment people can determine the priority areas of investment.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by Key Projects in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five‐year Plan Period(2014BAL05B04－3) REFERENCES

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Hanxiao Feng, a graduate student, majors in fire prevention and smoke extraction.

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