Factors Affecting the Efficiency of the Fire Fighting and Protection of the Local Administrative Organizations in Nong Khai Province

Abstract

The objectives of this research were 1) to study factors affecting the efficiency of the fire fighting and protection of the local administrative organizations in Nong Khai Province and 2) to study guidelines for developing the efficiency of the fire fighting and protection of the local administrative organizations in Nong Khai Province. The quantitative population consisted of 431 staff working for the fire fighting and protection in 68 local administrative organizations in Nong Khai Province. The research instrument was a questionnaire. The statistics used were percentage, mean, and standard deviation, Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The key qualitative informants were the heads of the Office for Prevention and Mitigation Nong Khai and Mitigation Nong Khai local offices, the presidents of the Subdistrict Administrative Organizations, and the mayors in Nong Khai Province in a total of 11 informants. The data were collected by in-depth interviews.

            The research findings were as follows.

1. The factors affecting the efficiency of the fire fighting and prevention of the local administrative organizations in Nong Khai Province in the overall had relationship at a positive moderate level with the statistical significance at the level of .01. They were the participation of the local administrative organizations, the arrangement of the emergency communications systems, firefighting drills, the tests of all systems, the training, the evacuation of people, the creation and improvement of the disaster of the prevention and mitigation, and the arrangement to have the warning systems, respectively. According to the analysis, the factors affecting the efficiency of the fire fighting and prevention of the local administrative organizations in Nong Khai Province included the arrangement of the emergency communications systems and the participation of the local administrative organizations with the statistical significance at the level of .01. Both of the factors could be used to predict the efficiency of the fire prevention and mitigation by 56%.

2. The guidelines for developing the efficiency of the fire fighting and prevention of the local administrative organizations in Nong Khai Province were that the meeting should be held to review the prevention plans and do the annual firefighting drills every year, the fire substations should be increased to cover operational areas in each locality, the integration in coordinating the operations working together between agencies by using the Incident Command System (ICS) to manage the coordination of operations working together between agencies should be created, the development of the emergency communication systems should be up-to-date and fast in warning when the emergency occurred, the warning channels should be created in various ways: the warning online, the warning noticing to the heads of the communities and the civilian volunteer representatives, the networks of the disaster of the prevention and mitigation in each locality should be created, and the residents should be continuously taught knowledge about the evacuation steps when the fire occurred.