Evaluation of Fire Disaster Emergency Response Capacity using Open-source Data and Response Time Analysis in Ilorin Metropolis

Abstract

This study evaluates the response capacity to fire disaster emergency response system in Ilorin metropolis using Open-source data and response time analysis. Road and street information were obtained from Geofabrik. In addition, coordinates of fire service stations and fire disaster risk spots, specifically fuel and gas stations were acquired using Garmin 76X handheld GPS. Using the relationship of the length of road segments and speed, the travel time was computed in ArcGIS 10.4 environment. With the Network analyst tool, the response capability of the fire stations was evaluated at different response times (1, 2, and 3 minutes) based on service area coverage. The results showed that the fire stations could only cover 0.24%, 0.68%, and 1.22% of the service area within 1-, 2- and 3-minute response time, respectively, whereas 97.86% of the metropolis requires longer time (>3 minutes). Finding from this study has revealed the inadequacy of the existing fire disaster emergency response system to effectively cover the city. This will be useful for local and state governments in policy directives on strengthening fire disaster emergency response structure.