London Fire Brigade Continues to Save Lives with the Help of SAS

Predictive analytics to help decrease incidents of fire

London Fire Brigade, the UK’s largest fire brigade is using SAS in its fight to decrease the number of fire incidents and save the lives of London’s residents. Software from SAS, the leader in business intelligence and predictive analytics, helps the brigade to prioritise the allocation of fire prevention resources by enabling the brigade to predict and pin-point specific households most at risk of fire.

A key aim of London Fire Brigade is to prevent fire incidents before they occur. Part of this drive is a programme of home fire-safety visits to advise London’s households on how to prevent and safeguard against fire. To be most effective, the brigade must direct resources where fire risk is highest. The brigade relies on SAS to provide this critical information.

SAS’ software analyses, amongst other factors, demographic information, geographical locations, historical data, and land-use and deprivation levels to create life-style profiles for London households. The profiles highlight those at the highest levels of fire risk. By using SAS, the London Fire Brigade has moved away allocating resources based purely on historical data; it can now predict much more accurately where fire may occur, which means those at highest risk can be targeted and educated.

The London Fire Brigade must have the most robust, reliable and accurate analytics software in place to ensure it is delivering the highest quality fire prevention programme, thus preventing the loss of life. SAS was chosen as it met the brigade’s stringent criteria; it also has extensive support options and the reputation as the leader in predictive analytics. Since implementation, the brigade increased the efficiency and speed of report generation, meaning the London Fire Brigade team spends less time on using the technology and more time in deploying its results.

Andy Mobbs, Risk Information Manager at London Fire Brigade states: “As the UK’s largest fire brigade, we aim to lead the way and drive the agenda in terms of fire prevention and safety. We are the first brigade to use such sophisticated analytics as part of our efforts and SAS’ software enables us to base our decisions on real facts rather than second guessing.

Ian Manocha, Managing Director of SAS UK states: “This is an incredibly important partnership for SAS. What could be more important than saving lives? We hope that other fire brigades around the country take the lead set by London Fire Brigade and understand the benefits that predictive analytics can provide for their boroughs.”