On 20th June, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the project of the Information Centre of the Ministry of the Interior (MoIIC) “Implementation of a unified platform for civil protection and fire protection management”, which will allow to start digitization of the work of the national fire supervision and civil protection.
The strategic goal of this project is to reduce the number of fire fatalities as well as to improve the overall fire safety situation in Latvia in the long term.
The Minister for the Interior Mr. Māris Kučinskis points out that infrastructure development both in the field of fire and rescue and in the field of civil protection in general has lacked a due attention for a long time; currently, the work is continued actively to address these issues.
In order to take proper care of people's safety, it is important that the responsible services are informed in a timely manner about the potential risks of various kinds to be able to respond as efficiently as possible. The modernization or digitization of the management of civil defence processes is an important step in this direction,” says M. Kučinskis.
The creation of the Unified Fire Safety and Civil Protection Platform VUCAP will provide the community with benefits such as the reduction of human and material losses, which will be achieved by improving the response capacity of the State Fire and Rescue Service of the Republic of Latvia (SFRS) and fire safety in Latvia. The public will be purposefully informed about the current fire safety requirements and will receive personalized reminders about the state and status of fire safety at fire safety facilities. Considering that the SFRS has been short of staff for several years, it is important that the development of the VUCAP will relieve employees who currently work with data manually, so that the workforce can be redirected to other responsibilities related to the main activities of the SFRS.
The completion of the Unified Fire Safety and Civil Protection Platform is scheduled for the year 2026. The introduction of the VUCAP will provide an opportunity for the State Fire and Rescue Service to digitally manage the work processes of national fire supervision and civil protection. At present, information is mainly circulated in paper format. In addition, the introduction of the VUCAP will ensure data-based decision-making on the placement of the SFRS resources, as well as allow more efficient identification of objects where the SFRS plans and conducts fire safety inspections.
Prepared by:
Ministry of the Interior
Communication Department