Perception of Fire Risk and its Influencing Factors in Coastal Communities of Southern Bangladesh: An Empirical Investigation

In developing countries like Bangladesh, fire prevention and mitigation initiatives are limited due to insufficient information about fire risk and related perceptions. However, the perception of fire risk at the municipality household level in coastal Bangladesh has yet to be studied in existing literature. This study aimed thereby to assess the perception of fire risk at the household level and investigate the influence of demographic and economic factors on the perception of fire risk in the Patuakhali municipality of southern Bangladesh. A total of 166 randomly selected households were contacted for an extensive interview. We found a medium level of fire risk perception in the study area based on the combined fire risk perception index score. Spatially, this perception may vary depending on socio-economic characteristics. The ANOVA test results show that out of 14 variables, about 57.1% are significantly associated with the educational status of the respondents, and about 35.7% are associated with family income conditions. The findings indicated that individuals with higher years of education and households with higher monthly income exhibited a higher perception of fire risk, and the perception is significant at 0.01 level. In addition, this perception was moderate to high in most of the wards (7 out of 9) in the Patuakhali municipality. Our findings have important implications for fire hazard education and management in urban areas, especially neighbourhoods with low and medium perceived risk.