Fire and Rescue Services Reconfiguration for Better Dealing with Post-Flashover Building Fires

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General Comments:

This article was submitted to an international journal, so I also understand that the authors would like comments from other countries.

There should be a strong distinction whether a rural or an urban region is considered. In my country, in the urban area are professional fire departments, but they also help in traffic accidents. On the one hand, they help to rescue injured people, but they also have appropriate equipment to rescue injured people from badly damaged vehicles. Furthermore, they also have chemical means to remove oil after a traffic accident, for example. In our country the rescue services are always ready for action, only in a few cities there is a professional fire department. In a large Central European city, the different fire stations are divided in such a way that any point of the city can be reached within 10 minutes. In rural areas we have voluntary fire departments, which have the technical equipment and vehicles in the village, but the firefighters are only called by a siren or cell phone for an operation.

In Germany in some towns, the fire and rescue services are united in terms of personnel, which means that if a person is injured, a vehicle comes to transport the person, and in the event of a fire, the fire engine comes.  However, it is the same personnel who once drive with the rescue car to the accident or with the fire truck to the fire or traffic accident.

Such organizational structures should also be considered in the reorganization of the fire department in Bulgaria, because in Central Europe there are efficient and cost-saving rescue structures.

To better understand the work, the structure of the Bulgarian fire department should be explained in the introduction. Does it consist only of employed firefighters or are there also volunteer fire departments.

 

Special comments

Lmm: Line and Linenumber

L12: Green building: In Central Europe, green building, buildings are understood to have a green facade, that is, a facade with plants on the outside, planted in soil (even on higher floors). In the article, green buildings are understood to be buildings that have increased thermal insulation, for example, polystyrene on the outside of the building.

L25: Use buildings with high thermal insulation instead of green building

The term green building should be revised throughout or not used for the reasons stated above.

L55: Fire and rescue services should be cited here.

L56: The Homeland Security service was already active before the 9/11 attacks, for example, in immigration control to the United States. It may have been expanded to include tasks after 9/11.

L64: In at least one European country, the rescue service is an independent organization that receives money from the public sector for infrastructure and personnel. But volunteers are also an important support for rescue services.

L142: I don't believe that older people cause more fires, but that when a fire breaks out they are less able to leave the area of the fire due to limited mobility and therefore die.

L219: In a Central European country (Austria) there are federal fire department guidelines, but the professional fire department is financially supported by the respective city, i.e. personnel and technical infrastructure are paid by the city. There is only one professional fire department in each province, the other fire departments are voluntary fire departments, the vehicles and technical infrastructure are financed by the municipality and the province. That means the fire department has nothing to do with a ministry.

L246: Reviewer's opinion on Fig. 5: If the respondents think that the organizational structure is overloaded, management by a ministry will only lead to further organizational overload. This again contradicts Fig. 6 because I think that the organization by a ministry leads to a further overloading of the organization. One should look at the organization of the Central European fire and rescue service.

L256: The quality of the Bulgarian fire department should be evaluated by objective figures. An important figure would be the number of people killed by fire per 100,000 inhabitants in Bulgaria compared to other European countries.

L320: Children can be interested in the fire department, which is important. However, young people (older than 15 years) can already be involved in the fire department with auxiliary services.

L326: Smoke detectors should be used primarily where there is an increased risk of fire and where there are many people. For example, in shopping centers, kindergartens, schools or universities. Evacuation drills should be conducted in kindergartens, schools and universities to practice evacuation and implicitly draw attention to fire hazards.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Some general feedback—

This manuscript focuses on comparing current and a proposed model for fire response organization dealing with fires in urban areas. However, the focus of the article is not entirely clear up front, and the author(s) never explicitly state a research question or research focus. It is not clear whether findings are applicable to other contexts, or matter only to Bulgarian response. It seems that the findings could be important, but the focus of the study and the "so what" needs to be clear up front.

Overall, the manuscript needs some edits to English, and some to simplify the language overall for ease of reading and so the reader can follow.

Having a good introductory paragraph at the beginning of the introduction section that lets the reader know what is going to be compared and to what end would be helpful in letting us know up front what is examined and concluded.

 

Some specific feedback—

In methods, the manuscript states “the key source of empirical information is a survey used in the author’s doctoral dissertation” but it is not clear in the text what the role of the second author may be—I am not sure that it matters for the purposes of the manuscript that the data is dissertation data—at this point it is primary data collected by the first author. I would keep the reference but remove the explicit language from the text.

Results and discussion are intertwined in a way that makes them difficult to parse—making more clear what the conclusions are from the study and where the author(s) are applying interpretation is an important distinction in any article.

Figures 10 and 11 are hard to read- 10 makes the clear point that it is hierarchical, but beyond that the text is really too small to understand; 11 is not interpretable without additional information—in the text it is referred to as a “detailed scheme” of the “proposed model” but on the face of the diagram it is unclear how it differs from a traditional hierarchical model, apart from being depicted differently and including additional information (i.e. regional structures).

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Simplify language overall for ease of reading.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revision has significantely improved the paper and ist should be published as is.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Much improved.