Fire Scenarios in the Enforcement of Performance-Based Fire Safety Regulations

Abstract

The critical problem in any performance-based regulatory sys tem is "linking" the social objectives to the technical requirements. Since there is no technical method of deriving technical requirements directly from social objectives, society must express the social requirements in a technical form. Fire scenarios are one of the key methods for society to articulate technical require ments for fire safety in performance-based codes. Society must specify both de sign fires and the acceptable "conditions" for any analysis. Proponents of performance-based design must articulate methods for keeping all "estimates" within the approved range of values. Implementation of this social control sys tem can take place in a "regulatory design review" as part of the perfor mance-based code process. Examples are given of such reviews in the UK performance-based code environment.