Study on Fire Prevention in Dong Traditional Villages in the Western Hunan Region: A Case Study of Gaotuan Village

Abstract

Fire accidents have been reported frequently in Chinese townships over the past few years, where people’s lives and properties have been subjected to huge losses. As a result, a considerable number of traditional villages have disappeared. In this study, field surveys and on-site monitoring were used to study the village of Gao Tuan, while seven scenarios were set up in Pyrosim for simulation and analysis. As indicated by the results of this study, the hidden dangers of Dong traditional settlements in the western Hunan region were identified in terms of the construction materials, street width, and fire use. The Pyrosim simulation analysis results were as follows: scenarios 1/2 show that by utilizing the topography and layout, the wind speed was reduced layer by layer, which reduced the fire spreading disaster by nearly half; scenarios 3/4/5/6 show that, except for the 1000 mm wide street, the degree of fire spreading was negatively correlated with the width of the street, and the fire could no longer be spread to the other side of the street when it was 8000 mm; and scenario 7 shows that, in the case of a fire in a residential house, it is safer to evacuate the people in the building in a unit within 320 s. Based on the survey and Pyrosim simulation results of fire spreading, the strengths and weaknesses of Gaotuan Village in the face of fire events were analyzed, and targeted recommendations are made based on the study for the Dong traditional settlement in the western Hunan region for fire prevention.