A Fire Prevention Measure for Disaster Prevention Planning Based on Resident Conditions and Community Characteristics in Preserved Historic Districts/Village in Japan

ABSTRACTMany historic districts/villages in East Asia are densely built with traditional wooden structures that are not resistant to disasters, making them vulnerable to fire and at high risk of large-scale fires. Particularly in Japan, the types of historic districts/villages vary in terms of how they were formed based on where they are located. In addition to the high risk of fire, in recent years, with the aging of the population, there has been a rise in the number of vacant houses and households with only elderly residents, which has led to an increase in the risk of delayed fire detection and reduced fire response capabilities. In this study, we focus on preserved commercial and waving industrial historic districts and a historic mountain village in Japan. Through multiple questionnaires and interview surveys with residents, we examine the use of a fire signal sharing system to control fire damage by sharing fire signals with neighbors to detect and discover fires at a very early stage and extinguish fires early by mutual assistance among residents. As a result, in the surveyed historic districts/village, based on the understanding of the actual living situations and use of buildings, it is revealed that it is difficult to discover and respond to fires at an early stage during certain time periods due to a decline in population in the district/village and changes in building use. Then, through analyzing resident questionnaire results on neighborhood relations and resident awareness of mutual assistance in the event of a disaster, residents’ degree of neighborhood interaction and level of cooperation perception, it is clarified that residents with close neighborhood relations and high degrees of neighborhood interaction tend to have high levels of cooperation perception and will take various cooperative response actions to the extent of initial fire extinguishing. Based on the analysis of the survey results conducted in the preserved historic districts where a fire signal sharing system has already been installed as a fire prevention measure, it is found that the residents who actually took mutual-aid actions related to early fire response when the system was triggered had high degrees of interaction, and especially the resident cooperation during an early stage fire in Takayama Sanmachi is considered to be effective in controlling fire damage.KEYWORDS: Fire prevention measurefire signal sharing systemmutual-aid early fire response systemneighborhood relationspreserved historic districts/villagesresidents’ interaction degreeresidents’ perception of cooperation in times of fire AcknowledgmentsWe are deeply grateful to the Takayama City Board of Education and the residents of the Takayama Sanmachi preserved historic district in Gifu Prefecture, Kiryu City Hall and the Kiryu Shinmachi preserved historic district in Gunma Prefecture, as well as the Yaizu City Board of Education and the Hanazawa preserved historic village in Shizuoka Prefecture for their cooperation in conducting this research.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 It is a local community that has maintained and managed “Yatais”, historic floats that are pulled and demonstrated during annual festival since the mid-Edo period.2 It is a local community formed in each of the three blocks in the preserved district to conduct townscape preservation activities, etc.3 It is a local community that is set up in each townscape preservation association and is responsible for initial firefighting and other disaster prevention activities.