Disaster Preparedness and Response Capacity to Incidents of Fire among Residential Buildings in Selected Areas in Lagos and Akwa-Ibom

Background: In Nigeria, fire incidents have grown to be a recurring issue. As such, its occurrence has been a key cause for concern for built environment stakeholders. The devastation brought forth by a fire disaster is multifaceted and can have effects that are just as intricate as the economy.

Research Objective: The study evaluated residential building disaster preparedness and firefighting capability in selected areas of Lagos and Akwa-Ibom State.

Methodology: The current research methodology was based on the research onion framework developed. The research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, methodological choice, time horizon, and technique/procedure layer are the six levels that make up the framework. The methodology chosen includes the positivist philosophy, the deductive approach, survey research technique, and quantitative research. Because of the nature of the research and the time constraints, the cross-sectional temporal horizon was chosen in this study. Convenience was used in the selection of a sample size of one hundred and fifty (150) people from both Lagos and Akwa-Ibom. A well-structured self-administered questionnaire was used to gather the data. The goodness-of-fit of the sociodemographic variables was tested using Chi-Square. For descriptive statistical analysis, the mean and median (cut-off point) were employed, whereas linear correlation was employed for testing hypotheses.

Result: There is no positive correlation between knowledge and attitude regarding fire disaster preparedness. Respondents have a good attitude toward fire events and fire safety; participants were unprepared for a fire disaster in terms of available and installed fire safety equipment, materials, and escape plan. The study recommended that the Nigerian government should first mandate all households to install certain firefighting equipment in their homes in order to ensure that individuals are equipped to combat fire.