Managing the risk of accidents for the purpose of ensuring occupational and environmental safety involves a number of activities, measures, and programs to be taken before, during, and after an accident in order to avoid it, reduce its impact, and mitigate its effects, respectively. A company or another legal entity is obligated to devise an accident protection plan and to adhere to it when taking measures of accident prevention and minimization of the impact on human life and health, property, and the environment. The structure of such a plan is presented along with the legal framework for accident management. This paper contains an insight about opinions of the members of fire rescue brigades regarding various aspects of emergencies in the context of accident management in general. A total number of 45 respondents participated in the study. Findings indicate that almost all respondents believe that their skills and abilities are applicable in the intervention phase and less than a half believe that their skills are applicable in prevention phase, while two-thirds of respondents stated that they have support for further education and upgrading in their organizations.

The objective of the conducted research is the identification and determination of requirements of members of fire rescue brigades during operations in the conditions of high risk in order to minimize the possibilities for injury incidence during the intervention. The research is focused on examination, determination and identification of factors affecting the increasing number of occupational injuries of members of fire rescue brigades during interventions. Hypothetical framework of the research problem consists of general hypothesis and six special hypotheses. Results suggest that almost all respondents believe that their skills and abilities are applicable in the intervention phase, but less than a half believe that their skills are applicable in prevention phase. Two-thirds of respondents stated that in their organization they have support for further education and upgrading while a half of respondents stated that they need education concerning identification, assessment and management of risks that can lead to emergency situations.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries were marked by sudden and rapid changes, including the free flow and interconnectedness of people, information, and trade, but the most prominent changes pertain to scientific and technological advancements. New connections were also found between different scientific disciplines, which had previously been considered unrelated, thus causing the breakthrough of multidisciplinary sciences. Unfortunately, the 21st century has so far been ridden with natural disasters worldwide. According to EM-DAT (Emergency Event Database 2015), the consequences and losses caused by natural disasters have been increasing. Thus, risk assessment became a priority for reducing the risk from natural disasters. Risk assessment is the essence of risk management. Just as there are connections between various scientific disciplines, so are there connections between various disastrous events, which resulted in the increased importance of the concept of multi-risk. Multi-hazard risk assessment is a key step in integrated risk management. Over the last decade, the interest in multi-risk assessment has grown in Europe but also globally.

The process of emergency management, starting from risk assessment of natural disasters and other hazards, through taking measures of prevention, protection and rescue, mitigation and restoration, should not be seen as burden on society, but rather as a factor of development. The dangers and accidents do not only take human lives, but inflict enormous, often irreparable damage that weakens the material power of the state and individuals, and can cause long-term problems to whole society. In that context, it is essential that the state influences the reduction of risks and dangers, increases the importance of participation and effectiveness of resources and capacities engaged in the process of emergency management, and thus, at the same time contributes to the security and development of whole society. The paper deals with the problems related to the development of vulnerability assessment from natural disasters as one of the tasks of the local government in the emergency management. After the risks at the local community have been assessed, it is possible to have an insight into the available technical and human capacity in the local community and, based on the given situation and in accordance with the law, make protection and rescue plans.

The objective of the research is the identification and determination of requirements of the members of fire rescue brigades during the interventions in the conditions of high risk in order to minimize the possibilities for injuries during the intervention. Results indicate that almost half of respondents need further education for the purpose of identification, assessment and management of the risks that can lead to emergency situations and that education would be helpful in acquiring knowledge and abilities to help jeopardized population. Systematic overview of objectives, necessary measures and research activities is given as a guideline for improvement of domestic national system of emergency situations management.