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Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority

Situation

Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority in Australia oversees the fire and safety practices that cover the State's 3.5 million people. The Authority's urban type brigades cover approximately 83 percent of the State's population while the remaining areas of the State are serviced by the Authority's Rural Fire Service.

Challenge

Until about 1998, the Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority was tracking urban brigade information on fires, fire safety, and fire practices in a legacy database that was quickly becoming overloaded. The Authority did not have a fast, user-friendly method of obtaining data from its database to help it improve its fire-fighting practices and overall community safety. The organization needed to:

Solution

Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority turned to PASW Statistics to reduce the amount of time it took to retrieve and analyze the vital incident report statistics accumulated in more than 400,000 record files.

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Results

Until 1998, the Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority relied on a legacy database called the Australasian Incident Recording System (AIRS). AIRS tracked details such as the time, date and address of fires; the amount of property lost; the cause and cost of the fire; and the number of casualties - all with the goal of improving the fire-fighting and emergency services provided to the public.

Unfortunately, the system was difficult to use, and thus the Authority completed very little analysis to help improve these services. In order to improve fire and emergency operations throughout Queensland, the Authority needed to reduce the time it took to generate analysis as well as simplify its highly complex data extractions and analysis process.

Extracted data from more than 400,000 consolidated record files in seconds rather than hours

The Authority's statistician turned to PASW Statistics to consolidate the data files, increase the user-friendliness of the system and reduce the time it took to complete data analysis. Today, using the SPSS Inc. software, the Authority's statistician can now extract data from files in a matter of seconds - where previously the same process could have taken hours or even days.

Reduced analysis from three months to just a few minutes

Once that data is extracted, analyzing it now takes just minutes - and full reports can be generated in less than a day.

"Major detailed analysis of trends in incidents and response time - which would either have taken months to complete or would have been impossible to complete prior to the application of PASW Statistics software - are now possible," says Brian Maclachlan, Principal Adviser, Statistical Research and Analysis, at Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority. "Using PASW Statistics, one particular incident trend analysis that used to take us several months to complete can now be repeated and ready for publication in less than a day."

In addition, the Authority's monthly performance statistics - which measure performance such as emergency response times for each station in the State - can now be completed in less than two hours. The reports used to take a minimum of three days to complete.

"We now have people walk in and say, ‘I need an analysis of how many fires there were in a certain region in a certain time period,' and it takes longer to print the analysis than it does to run it," Maclachlan says. "Prior to implementing PASW Statistics, I would have said ‘Come back in a few months and we'll have it for you.'"

Saved Authority more than $100,000 annually in human resource costs

Maclachlan estimates that the small cost of the statistics software saves the Authority approximately $100,000 annually, mainly through reduced human resource costs. "With the level of analysis that we do, if we did not have the PASW Statistics software, we would need more staff, and at least one more statistician - if not two," he says. "We can now run an analysis before we leave, and in the morning when we come in, it's all there. It's like having someone working for you - but you don't have to pay for it."

Enabled the Authority to measure success and place resources where needed

"With PASW Statistics, I can focus on areas of analysis that have been ignored in the past. We're now actually using the data we're collecting," Maclachlan says. For instance, the Authority is using the data it collects to determine if the Authority's fire stations are operating in the right locations; to develop community safety programs in areas of high risk; and to determine what type of equipment - such as ladders versus medical equipment - is needed at which stations.

"We now look at internal processes such as forecasting in more detail. With a comprehensive overview of incident location and rate of occurrence, we can plan ahead for vital systems and equipment as well as predict potentially dangerous situations and do something about them before they become trouble spots," says Maclachlan. "We believe that if you can mine your records and get the findings to the relevant people quickly, the performance of your organization can only get better."