Samenvatting

The Dutch Regional Fire Services collectively aim at preventing fire, casualties and damage. The main activity is informing citizens about fire risks and the appropriate measures they can take. From both a political and social perspective, it is valuable to know what the return of the Community Fire Safety program is. One way to chart the return of the program is a comparison of the cost of, and society’s willingness-to-pay for, the program. To estimate this willingness-to-pay, this article applies the contingent valuation method to a national representative sample of 806 Dutch citizens. The results show that willingness-to-pay of an average Dutch household is estimated to be between € 25.00 and € 35.67 per year provided the Community Fire Safety program improves the fire safety by 10%. At the national level, this amounts to 200 – 270 million euro annually. This value is seven to ten times more than the approximate costs of the current Community Fire Safety program.