Barcelona adapts fire prevention to the transformation of the city

Barcelona City Council has made prevention and emergency response a priority in order to guarantee a safe city. Sebastià Massagué, head of Barcelona City Council's Civil Protection, Fire Prevention, Firefighting and Rescue Service, explains that it is no longer enough to respond to incidents once they have already occurred. "The challenge is to anticipate and carry out the necessary prevention tasks to minimise these incidents, and in the event that they do occur, to work to minimise their consequences as far as possible".

For Massagué, it is very important to promote a culture of fire prevention and self-protection in order to reduce the number of incidents, and especially the number of casualties, with the collaboration of all the agents involved in emergencies in order to comply with current regulations and the lines of action of the Barcelona fire prevention plan.

Safety and self-protection

According to the head of Barcelona City Council's Civil Protection, Fire Prevention, Firefighting and Rescue Service, the main objectives are as follows: "To ensure regulatory prevention and its application; to promote safety and self-protection advice to protect citizens; to seek collective involvement in the ways of dealing with the challenges of fire prevention, seeking the involvement of society, users and professionals in the definition, design and implementation of new ideas; to generate knowledge of fire prevention for the transferability of Barcelona's public policies to other cities around the world; and to adapt fire prevention to the transformation of the city, especially to the introduction of new forms of mobility, renewable energy sources and major metropolitan infrastructures".