Fire security is one of the most important tasks of the government. Since ancient times occasional blazes constituted a great menace to the existence of numerous communities and even cities. For this reason, the creation of the efficient fire protection system was one of the main goals of any local and national government. At the moment, the USA has a unique approach that rests on the functioning of firehouses which should be able to respond to a call and reach the needed place within a short period of time.
Its efficiency could be proven by the absence of serious fires and other hazards that could destroy a neighborhood or some other important objects of infrastructure. However, it costs a lot for the budget as the functioning of every firehouse should be sponsored by the local government to buy the needed equipment and pay salary to its workers. That is why there is the tendency towards the reconsideration of the approach and converting firehouses to community centers.
There are several facts that should be emphasized when revolving around this process. First, it obviously contributes to the significant decrease of the efficiency of the whole fire protection system as the time needed to respond to a call increases and security of various objects and people suffer (Neyfakh, 2013). However, the given decision has a certain political motivation. As stated above, the system is rather expensive, and every year great sums are spent to guarantee its existence. Yet, the alteration of the approach might contribute to the creation of a new more cost-saving pattern that could be accepted by the government as the appropriate alternative to the existing one.
References
Neyfakh, L. (2013). Plenty of firefighters, but where are the fires?Bostonglobe. Web.