Bradford City Fire Essay

1.0 Introduction Working within the events sector it is highly likely that you will be faced to deal with certain risks and hazards that could occour. Risk has to be managed and can be done in a manner of ways. Some risks may be controlled by good management but others are inevitable and uncontrollable but dealing with the aftermath of uncontrollable risks can be done effectively. Guidelines and regulations are put in place to reduce risk at events but it is also down to yourself. 2.0 Bradford City Fire This disaster occoured on Sautrday 11th Mayb 1985 at Valley Parade Stadium and is still widely talked about today. A football mtch between Bradford City an d Lincolnd city took place but a great fire started resulting in 56 fatalaties and 256 injuries. 2.1 Identifying the risk The obvious risk is the fire, from the attached video in appendix you can see the start of the fire is very small and I don’t think anyone thought it would escelate to the etent that it did. The fire was first noticed at 3.40pm just 5 minutes before half time. It was noticed three rows from the back of G block in the Valley Parade ground. At first swtewards requested firefighting equipment but soon realised it was burning out of control and polie and stewards started to evacuate people from the stand. As you can see in the video it only took 4 minutes for the whole of the roof and wooden stands to become ablaze. In appendix it is reported that supporters towards the back tried to escape through the back but foun d that the gates were locked. Should the gates have been locked? And if they were why were they still loced in such an emergency? 2.2 Identifying the cause There has never been one definite cause or reason for the start of the fire but many similar reasons. The Daily Mail article in appendix reported that the cause was â€Å"a match or cigarette end dropped onto rubbish that had accumulated under the main stand at Cvalley Parade an turned the wooden structure into inferno† While an article by The Guardian suggests that litter that had developed over the years had contributed the blaze â€Å"The police officer responsible for searching the debris of the burnt-out stand told Popplewell he found litter which had been there for years, including a 1968 copy of the local newspaper† I think the cause of the fire may have been a smoke flare which encouraged the fire by the sheer negligence of not keeping the stands clean and tidy as a newspaper from 17 years prior to the event was discovered during the clean up of the disaster. A magazine article from Infochem in 2010 (issue 234) suggests the same that the fire was started by a cigarette or match and was encouraged buy built up litter but then goes on to reveal tht â€Å"Bradford City FC had been repeatedly warned about the litter posing a fire risk and had plans to upgrade their stand at the end of the season as they were to be promoted for the next season† So the fact that they had been repeatedly warned about the litter surely the stadium should have done something sooner rather than later like in this situation. 3.0 Impact of the risk It is clear from the death toll and injury numbers that many people have been affected by this , not only the mental and physical scarring of the people injured but also the families and friends of those who lost their lives that day. A report from the Independent found in appendix backs this up by describing his story of being told his father was in a special burns unit and was to have skin grafts on his hands. Also showing the severity of the outcome of the injuries a plastic surgeon Professor David Sharp and other plastic surgeons from around the UK were brought in. They operated on around 25 people in the first day while the total needing medical attention was 80. 3.1 Changes as a result of the event This may not be a direct change due to the disaster at the ground that day as this was put into practice in 2007, 22 years after the disaster but im sure it has something to do with it. Bradford City Football Club released a statement to become much more stricter on the non smoking policy. It can be found in appendix . From the introduction of the anti smoking legislation it became apparent that not all supporters were abiding by the rules and ignoring the no smokig signage in certain parts of the stadium. As suggested that a cigarette may be the main cause of the disaster you wuld of thought they would have been more forceful with this rule in the first place. They say that they feel sufficient warning have been given anf that swtard are instructed to eject anyone who is caught smoking witin the stadium. Also that anyone who wishes to leave the stadiun to smoke will not be re admitted under any circumstances. The main thing that came out of this disater was The Poppywell enquiry, this was to revise the Safety at Sports SGrounds Act 1975. From this they changed it to the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act. One change that came out of this was to have a maximum number of attendees in stadiuns which is presently set at 10,000. This helps keep an eye on numbers and from a health and safety point of view allows the emergency services to calculate appropriate numbers for if another disaster was to happen. Also from the Poppywell enquiry came that the â€Å"Green Guide† should be revised. The Green Guide gives advice and ensures that people have a strong idea on how safety should be handles at large sporting events. 4.0 Risk strategy methodology There are 4 types of risk response strategies, these are; avoidance,reduction,retention and transference. Risk avoidance is the removal of risk liabilities or hazards. This can be done by changing certain procedures that have a high risk, removing or decreasing risk sources and substituting the less hazardous options. Sometimes risks are far too high and may not be able to be reduced at all and the only answer is to cancel or get rid of the whole idea. Risk reduction is the reduction of the severity caused by the impact. It’s done by reducing the probability of it occurring, It is basically to reduce the seriousness of the outcome should a accident occur. This is done by methods such as protecting yourselves and others and having a good security system. Risk retention is applies to small risks as the cost of insuring yourselves and others against the risk would be substantially larger than the total losses so no special efforts are made to control the risk. This doesn’t mean that the risks are ignored but are closely monitored to ensure they don’t happen again. Risk transference is the allocation of risk to a third party not yourself, which is obtained by purchasing insurance cover.