A Discussion on Tall Building Fire Safety in the Asia-Oceania Regions

Abstract

Many new tall buildings of height over 300 m have been constructed in the Asia-Oceania regions over the past decade. Fire safety provisions were determined by following the prescriptive codes developed years ago for traditional buildings up to 120 m tall. Performance-based approach was applied when these buildings failed to satisfy the prescriptive codes. With the occurrence of many big fires in recent years, people are beginning to seriously question whether current fire safety provisions are adequate in these tall buildings with new architectural design features. Very few comprehensive studies reported on the dynamics of room fires in tall buildings. In this connection, a number of scenarios are of particular importance in scrutinizing new fire safety problems arising from tall buildings. In the first place, wind action on tall residential buildings with open windows will supply adequate oxygen to burn large amounts of combustibles present. Secondly, a big fire with high heat release rate only gives short ‘available safe egress time’. However, high occupant loading in tall buildings needs long ‘required safe egress time’. This discrepancy in safe egress times would cause serious safety problems. Thirdly, special designs such as open kitchens in small flats of very tall buildings would raise new problems in fire safety provisions that have not been thoroughly considered.