ASSESSMENT OF FIRE SAFETY AWARENESS OF OCCUPANTS AND DEVELOPERS IN RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS IN MAKURDI METROPOLIS

¹Elijah. A. Hime and ²Imborivungu, Terkimbi Emmanuel

¹Department of Vocational and Technical Education, Benue State University

²University of Agriculture Makurdi, Demonstration Secondary School

Email: emmyterk@gmail.com,akaakaseh@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to assess fire safety awareness of occupants and developers in residential buildings in makurdi metropolis. Two research question and one hypothesis were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significant. The study adopted descriptive survey research design with the total population of 1267 for the study. The sample of 221occupants, 24 registered builders and 33 registered architects was selected using simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques respectively. A self-developed questionnaire was employed to collect data for the study and was validated by experts. Upon successful validation the instruments were trial tested in a pilot study. The reliability coefficient of the instruments was 0.78. The data collected was analyesd using descriptive statistics and t-test. The findings revealed that, the extent of fire safety awareness acquired by occupants and developers is very low and that there is a significant difference between fire safety awareness acquired by occupants and developers of residential buildings in Makurdi Metropolis (P-value 0.000 is less than 0.05 at df=357 and t=4.80). The study recommended that Fire safety awareness should be intensified by fire safety officers and other relevant agencies to improve on fire safety education of occupants and developers and also to arrest fire disasters in residential buildings in Makurdi Metropolis, developers should educate the clients on issues of fire safety in residential buildings these could be done through workshops and seminars.