Firefighters Research Articles

Analysis of the Application of Fire Protective Composition for Wooden Structures

In construction, coniferous wood is usually used as load-bearing and enclosing structures. Wood is characterized by the ability to ignite and spread combustion when heated in air. Wooden building structures pose a fire hazard, since with an initial impulse of external thermal energy, ignition is possible. In addition, when a fire occurs in buildings and structures where wood is located, a number of dangerous fire factors arise: flames, sparks, heat flow, toxic combustion products, extremely low oxygen concentrations, decreased visibility due to smoke. In this regard, it becomes relevant to treat wood with special compounds that increase resistance to fire. The authors examined the fire hazardous properties of building structures made of wood, analyzed the fire retardant treatment of wooden structures with a special composition; examined the fire hazardous properties of building structures made of wood, the mechanism of pyrolysis, and the effect of fire retardant treatment on the behavior of wood when exposed to fire. The use of fire retardant significantly affected the pyrolysis processes of the samples. The information obtained during the study made it possible to assess the degree of differences in the values of the average weight loss of samples treated with different fire retardants. Samples using a fire retardant composition have a shallower charring depth. Damage associated with thermal exposure is fundamentally different from untreated samples. Treated and impregnated samples exhibit rapid weight loss. This is due to the fact that in treated and impregnated samples, when exposed to high temperatures in the oven, the reactions of dehydration and cross-linking of cellulose molecules are accelerated.

Features of determining the time of evacuation of people from buildings in case of fire

The object of the study is the safe evacuation time of people in case of fire from a typical secondary education institution. The problem was solved, which consisted in the inconsistency of the quantitative assessment of «pre-evacuation time» set out in DSTU 8828:2019, which is regulated by the requirements of DBN B.2.5-56:2014, with today’s conditions, when determining the safe time of evacuation from buildings and structures. Thanks to the obtained results, features were revealed that fully determine the dependence of the relationship between the pre-evacuation time and warning systems on the example of a typical secondary education institution. The evacuation time was determined according to DSTU 8828:2019, taking into account the requirements of DBN B.2.5-56:2014. The total evacuation time from the building was 687 s. The time of blocking evacuation routes and evacuation exits by dangerous fire factors is determined. The results of the recorded temperature did not exceed 46 оC, the value of oxygen was not recorded lower than ≥0,226 kg/m3, the density of carbon monoxide was not more than ≤1,16•10-3 kg/m3 during the total evacuation time, which meets the requirements of fire safety. The results of the recorded visibility exceed the maximum permissible values. Thus, the path to evacuation exit № 1 using stairwell № 1 takes place through door № 7. Movement through this door lasts for 531 s, therefore, now when the last person passes through stairwell and door № 7, the visibility is already ≤6 m. Therefore, evacuation through stairwell № 1 is dangerous. In addition, the last person passes through the door of the evacuation exit № 1 for 550 s, where the visibility value is ≤9 m, which is also an excess of the maximum permissible values, according to the requirements.

Design and research of suburban railway fire alarm system

With the rapid development of suburban rail transit, fire safety issues have received more and more attention. As the first line of the Shanghai Suburban Railway, the fire safety problem of the Shanghai Suburban Railway Airport Link Line is more prominent. In this paper, an automatic fire alarm system is designed and researched for the fire safety problem of the Shanghai Railway Airport Liaison Line, which adopts a hierarchical distributed structure and can realize accurate fire detection thorough immediately sending fire alarm information to the station control room and line operation control center and informing the location of the fire area. At the same time, the system also coordinates with the BAS system and ISCS system or independently realizes the linkage control of fire fighting equipment. The research results of this paper are of great significance for improving the fire safety level of Shanghai railway airport links.

The effectiveness of past wildfire at limiting reburning is short-lived in a Mediterranean humid climate

BackgroundThe study of wildfire interactions (i.e., spread limitation and reburns) is gaining traction as a means of describing the self-limiting process of fire spread in the landscape and has important management implications but has scarcely been attempted in Europe. We examined to what extent previously burned areas restricted the development of individual large wildfires (> 500 ha) in mainland Portugal.ResultsFor the 1984–2021 period, we (1) modeled the proportion of large wildfire perimeters coinciding with transitions to shorter time since fire (TSF), i.e., locations where fire spread ceased upon encountering assumedly less flammable fuels, and (2) characterized the prevalence of different TSF in the composition of the area burned by large wildfires in relation to available TSF. Only 4% of the large wildfires did not comprise edges intersecting past wildfires. Low TSF (especially up to 8 years) resulted in large-wildfire perimeter limitation at TSF transitions. This effect was further enhanced by high historical burn probability and proximity to roadways and watercourses. Perimeter limitation did also increase under high (but not very high or extreme) fire danger, benefiting from maximum seasonal firefighting preparedness. TSF prevalence in the composition of large-wildfire area was extremely variable and thus an overall weak pattern emerged, with minimum and maximum prevalence respectively at TSF < 2 years and TSF ≥ 6 years.ConclusionsLarge wildfire limitation in Portugal is hampered by fast fuel build-up after fire, indicating a short-lived fire-hazard reduction effect under the prevailing Mediterranean humid climate of the study region. Nonetheless, such effect should be considered when planning fuel-reduction treatments and can be used opportunistically during large-wildfire suppression operations.

ОЦЕНКА ВЕРОЯТНОСТИ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ НА ГОЛОВНОЙ НЕФТЕПЕРЕКАЧИВАЮЩЕЙ СТАНЦИИ АВАРИЙНЫХ СИТУАЦИЙ, ПРОТЕКАЮЩИХ ПО РАЗЛИЧНЫМ СЦЕНАРИЯМ

The work of enterprises in the agro-industrial complex is closely connected with the use of petroleum products, the use of which is ensured through oil pumping stations. The assessment of the probability of emergency situations at such enterprises was carried out using the example of the main oil pumping station GNPS-1 “Taishet” of TransnefteVostok LLC. It is shown that the enterprise belongs to objects of increased fire danger, the most dangerous technological areas of which are the tank farm, the main oil pumping station and the booster pumping station. A fire and explosive substance - oil is circulated in a technological scheme. Possible ways of developing emergency situations associated with the failure of equipment in individual technological sections of an oil pumping station were investigated in the work. The most dangerous accidents occur in three areas: in the tank farm, at the main and booster pumping stations. The probabilities for the development of emergency situations have been determined. It was revealed that the most dangerous scenarios are possible at any of the reservoirs of the tank farm and at the main oil pumping and booster pumping station. In both scenarios, an instant spill fire, a spill fire with delayed ignition, and an explosion of a vapor-air cloud are possible. The cause may be a failure of emergency ventilation and a vapor-air cloud gas analyzer. The studied options for the development of an accident on technological equipment will make it possible to establish the scale of the consequences of the spread of dangerous factors of fire and explosion, as well as to determine a set of measures to prevent emergency situations, timely response and minimize their consequences.

Flame retardant, heat insulating and hydrophobic chitosan-derived aerogels for the clean-up of hazardous chemicals

Leakage of hazardous chemicals often causes significant casualties, enormous economic losses, and negative social benefits. Presently, fire rescue personnel lack efficient and eco-friendly disposal materials for hazardous chemical leakage accidents. In this study, chitosan (CS) aerogels with excellent flame-retardant performance were prepared via cross-linking by two phosphorus-containing vanillin-based compounds (DV and TV). The as-prepared chitosan aerogels were lightweight and porous. The introduction of DV and TV greatly enhanced the residual char yields of CS at 700 °C and the flame-retardant performance of chitosan aerogels. TCS-5.0 possessed the best flame-retardant performance, indicating that TV was more effective than DV in enhancing the flame-retardant performance of chitosan aerogels. The greatly improved flame-retardant properties could be attributed to TV effectively promoting the residual char formation of chitosan aerogels and reducing the formation of combustible gas phase products. To improve the hydrophobicity of chitosan aerogels, TCS-5.0 was treated with solution immersion to load siloxane molecules on its surface. The water contact angle of HTCS-5.0 was 136.1°. HTCS-5.0 had a high oil absorption multiplicity, absorbing up to 31 times its own weight of chloroform. HTCS-5.0 could continuously absorb organic solvents on the water surface with the assistance of a vacuum pump, indicating that HTCS-5.0 could be used for the clean-up of hazardous chemical leakage accidents.

Wildfire risk weighting and behaviour prediction using open geospatial data and ontologies

This article presents a novel approach to wildfire risk assessment and behaviour prediction by leveraging open geospatial data and ontologies. The proposed methodology includes a spatially weighted index model and multicriteria analysis to represent the risk of forest fires in the affected area. It bridges gaps in theory and practice, offering a comprehensive solution for evaluating potential forest fire risk in near real time, predicting fire behaviour and elucidating the semantics of fire management. During dry and hot conditions, forest fires tend to escalate. Hence, we propose an algorithm that combines experts’ empirical criteria and open-source data to identify dangerous fires in near real time, aiding authorities in directing attention to the riskiest areas. The objective is to predict forest fire behaviour, a complex and nonlinear system influenced by dynamic factors such as weather conditions, topography and land use. Our methodology enables real-time assessment of potential forest fire risks, complemented by predictive fire behaviour scenarios and a descriptive ontology of fire management semantics. We examine existing fire-related ontologies and propose a comprehensive one encompassing incident descriptions, firefighting resources, actor interrelations and knowledge for effective action. By classifying fire sources, our algorithm enables strategic decision-making to prevent uncontrolled fires. This solution significantly enhances data using semantic and spatial relationships among wildfire resources. Furthermore, we demonstrate how ontologies improve data integration and interoperability among diverse systems and organisations involved in forest fire risk management, fostering better coordination and faster responses to critical situations. To facilitate decision-making, we create decision-making scenarios linked to analysed hot spots, drawing from open hot spot data such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), OpenStreetMap (OSM), OpenWeatherMap (OWM) and OpenTopoData (OTD). We propose an ordinal and linguistic classification system (F1–F5) denoting risk levels as low, moderate, high, very high and extreme. These values are obtained through factor aggregation and fuzzy logic. A publicly accessible, interactive web map displays the results derived from this model. Overall, our contributions to wildfire risk management provide authorities with a valuable tool to make informed decisions and mitigate the damaging effects of wildfires.

Modeling fuel moisture dynamics under climate change in Spain’s forests

BackgroundCurrent assessments of the effects of climate change on future wildfire risk are based on either empirical approaches or fire weather indices. No study has yet used process-based models over national scales to understand how and where will increases in climate aridity affect the likelihood of fire activity through changes in the moisture content of live (LFMC) and of dead (DFMC) fuels. Here, we used process-based models to forecast changes in LFMC and DFMC under the 21st century climatic conditions projected from moderate and high greenhouse gas emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Predictions were performed across broad productivity gradients in peninsular Spain to understand how productivity mediates the effects of climate change on fuel moisture dynamics.ResultsLFMC and DFMC were predicted to decline under the climatic conditions projected for the coming decades. Increases in the annual frequency of days with fuel moisture content below wildfire occurrence thresholds were predicted to extend fire season lengths by 20 days under RCP4.5 and by 50 days under RCP8.5. The effects of climate change on LFMC and DFMC varied linearly and negatively with productivity (stronger fuel moisture decreases in least productive environments). Although we observed a significant mitigation effect from rising CO2 (via increases in water-use efficiency), it was not enough to offset LFMC declining trends induced by increased temperature and aridity.ConclusionsWe predicted that the warmer and more arid climatic conditions projected for the 21st century will lead to generalized declines in fuel moisture, lengthening fire seasons, and increasing wildfire danger. The use of process-based models to forecast LFMC dynamics allowed the consideration of plant species capabilities to buffer climate change impacts. Significant increases in the fire season length predicted in the most productive environments, currently with large fire return intervals, would pose an increase of fire danger in major Spanish carbon sinks. Finally, the CO2 mitigation effect would not be enough to offset climate change-driven declines in seasonal LFMC levels.

The future of extreme meteorological fire danger under climate change scenarios for Iberia

Wildfires are disturbances that occur in ecosystems, both naturally and derived from anthropogenic factors, often caused by extreme meteorological conditions, and have recurrently destructive impacts on forests throughout the world. The complex nature of the interactions between wildfires, their dynamics, and human interference from a climate change perspective has motivated a growing number of researchers to address this topic. The fire weather index (FWI) has been extensively used to analyze the link between meteorological fire danger and its local to regional characteristics contributing to the severity of these events, as well as real-time operational monitoring at national and international levels. Recently, a new improved fire danger index that includes the effect of atmospheric instability has been developed, the so-called FWIe. The presence of instability in the atmosphere may be a boost to more energetic wildfires, such as the June 2017 extreme event in central Portugal, making it an important asset in risk monitoring and management. Here, a comprehensive examination of future fire risk on the Iberian Peninsula was performed. Additionally, a comparative analysis between FWI and FWIe was pursued in the context of climate change. We computed both FWI and FWIe using a multi-model ensemble composed of 13 Euro-CORDEX Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations forced by different global climate models. The historical period (1971–2000) and three projected periods of 30 years (2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2 100), under three emission scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) were considered. When assessing modelled FWI and FWIe, results show that summer values tend to substantially increase in the future when assuming the historical period as the benchmark, with an expected extension of the danger period to June and, in a lower magnitude, to September. The north-western region of Iberia, including the north of Portugal and the north-western-to-central Spain are the regions with larger increases in danger in the future, which may be critical since these are the regions with more fire-prone vegetation. This work also points to large differences in fire danger projections among scenarios, calling for a distinct set of adaptation needs that should be timely prepared by stakeholders and authorities.

A Multi-Criteria Decision Intelligence Framework to Predict Fire Danger Ratings in Underground Engineering Structures

A wide variety of natural catastrophes are induced by coal mining, with fire hazard being one of the most significant threats to underground engineering structures. In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in mine fire accidents due to the abundance of coal deposits around the world. Underground fires and explosions have continuously been the primary reason for a significant proportion of deaths and the destruction of infrastructure over the last few decades. Underground mining fires deplete natural coal resources, have an adverse impact on the environment by releasing hazardous chemicals and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and cause subsidence due to coal depletion during the combustion process. This study aims to predict fire danger rating of underground mining production processes by using the application of state-of-the-art unsupervised and supervised machine learning techniques. The developed k-nearest-neighbors-based isometric feature mapping and fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm has shown its dependability and superiority with a higher accuracy and has been advantageous to the monitoring and prevention of fire danger in underground mining production processes. The proposed multi-criteria decision intelligence framework permits early fire detection, providing the emergency response team extra time to respond the critical situations in order to prevent the fire from spreading, hence promoting sustainable, green, climate-smart, environmentally friendly and safe mining engineering operations.

Development of an Index for Forest Fire Risk Assessment Considering Hazard Factors and the Hazard-Formative Environment

Forest fires are characterized by a rapid and devastating nature, underscoring the practical significance of forest fire risk monitoring. Currently, forest fire risk assessments inadequately account for non-meteorological hazard factors, lack the hazard-formative environment and contextual disaster knowledge for fire occurrence mechanisms. In response, based on MODIS products, we augmented the FFDI (forest fire danger index) with the RDST (regional disaster system theory) and selected various fire risk indicators, including lightning. MOD14 was used for the correlation analysis of fire and its indicators. Through the amalgamation of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the entropy method, and the minimal relative entropy theory, we formulated the CFFRI (composite forest fire risk index) and assessed forest fire risks spanning from 2010 to 2019 in Southwest China, which were validated with historical disaster data and MCD64. The findings revealed that the CFFRI yields consistently higher overall fire risk values, with 89% falling within the high-risk category and 11% within the moderate-risk category. In contrast, the FFDI designated 56% of cases as fourth-tier fire risks and 44% as third-tier fire risks. Notably, the CFFRI achieved an accuracy of 85% in its calculated results, while the FFDI attained 76%. These outcomes robustly demonstrate a superior applicability of the CFFRI compared with the traditional FFDI.

Socio-spatial Inequities of Fire and Rescue Services in Sweden: An Analysis of Real and Estimated Response Times

Lowering the response times of fire and rescue services (FRS) can reduce costs and the risk of fatalities in emergencies. Ensuring everyone can be reached by the FRS as quickly as possible is therefore a key objective for planners, who often rely on estimated response times to know where response times are long. To be reliable, such estimations need to be validated against real response times. Therefore, this study investigates the spatial patterns of FRS in Sweden in 2018, and compares how estimated and real response times correspond, as well as what factors explain under- or overestimation of the real times. Network analysis performed in a Geographical Information System (GIS) and regression modelling underpin the methodology. In most FRS events (81.3%), estimated response times are shorter than real response times with an average of 83.6 s. Both real and estimated response times are highest in rural municipalities. However, on average, underestimations are larger in urban municipalities. Response times also tend to be underestimated in municipalities with formalized cooperation agreements. Joint organization of FRS resources is thus not necessarily an effective way to reduce response times, with implications for the way FRS is delivered. This study highlights the heterogeneous spatial patterns of difference between estimated and real response times, and shows the importance of being event and area specific when planning the FRS system.

Longitudinal changes in cardiorespiratory fitness among firefighters based on a fixed 12.0 MET standard and an age-adjusted fitness standard.

Firefighting is a physically demanding profession. Firefighters (FFs) need adequate physical fitness (PF) to perform duty tasks efficiently. While FFs' work demands are constant throughout their career, there is an expected age-related decline in PF. To describe longitudinal changes in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) based on a fixed (12.0 METs) and an age-adjusted standard and compare the prevalence of fit/unfit firefighters (FFs) over eight years. 297 Brazilian male firefighters were randomly selected. CRF was assessed by the 12-minute Cooper test. To compare the prevalence's of fit/unfit FFs depending on the standard (12 METs vs. age-adjusted), the McNemar test was used. The reduction in the prevalence of fit firefighters was 4.4-fold higher when the analysis did not consider age. After eight years, the prevalence of fit FFs decreased by 30.5% based on the fixed standard, while this reduction was only 7% when using an age-adjusted standard.

Screening for Comorbidity of Sleep Disorders in Career Firefighters.

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and sequelae of insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and comorbid OSA and insomnia (COMISA). In the morning, after a shift end, Midwest career firefighters ( N = 89) in a midsized city completed an electronic battery of questionnaire to screen for OSA, daytime sleepiness, insomnia, presleep arousal, nightmares, mental and physical health symptoms, and a one-night sleep diary. Prevalence of firefighters exceeding screening thresholds: OSA: 54%; insomnia: 30%; COMISA: 17%; four or more nightmares per month: 15%. Firefighters who met criteria for COMISA had shorter total sleep time, less restful and worse sleep quality, higher depression and anxiety symptoms, and presleep arousal symptoms than firefighters without self-reported sleep problems. Many firefighters are at elevated risk of individual behavioral sleep disorders, COMISA, and daytime dysfunction.

A method to accelerate the rescue of fire-stricken victims

For individuals trapped in a fire, early detection can significantly increase their chances of survival. Presently, firefighters employ a systematic search method along the walls, ensuring a comprehensive and thorough exploration of the environment to prevent missing any trapped victims. However, this approach has its drawbacks, such as time wastage in areas or rooms without victims. The goal of this study is to propose a search method that can expedite the discovery of trapped victims. Our method relies primarily on prior knowledge, crowd information and the temperature within the fire scene, utilizing fuzzy logic to calculate the probability of the presence and survival of victims in each distinct space. The resulting search sequence not only accelerates victim discovery but also safeguards firefighters from unnecessary risks. We conducted various simulation experiments to validate our approach. In comparison to the sequential search method currently employed by firefighters, the experimental results indicate that our method reduces the time to locate trapped victims by 25 %. Compared to other path planning algorithms based on approximate optimization, our method offers a shorter computation time, making it suitable for integration into fire rescue systems to provide real-time assistance.

The negative effect of solving the ‘white bear’ problem with mindfulness: Expansion and reconfirmation of mindfulness profiles based on ironic process theory

Although previous research on trait mindfulness has demonstrated that there are some mixed effects on various outcomes, it is unclear why mindfulness sometimes negatively relates to positive outcomes, contrary to expectations. To address this issue, we draw on ironic process theory to explain why there are distinct effects resulting from trait mindfulness. Specifically, the goals of this study were to reconfirm previous trait mindfulness profiles among Korean blue-collar workers via an ironic process theory framework and test the relationship between trait mindfulness profiles and various outcomes (i.e., work-related, physical and psychological well-being). Two blue-collar worker samples (434 fire fighters and 426 manufacturing workers) were collected. Employees reported their trait mindfulness, work-related variables, physical, and psychological well-being status. We identified four trait mindfulness profiles that represent distinct mind control processes, using latent profile analysis. Moreover, we also found that these profiles differentially predicted employee physical and psychological well-being, such that people using monitoring processes (i.e., those with a judgmentally observing profile) consistently showed a worse well-being status than people using operating processes (i.e., those with a non-judgmentally aware profile). Our study provided theoretical understanding of mindfulness profiling research as well as reconfirming its existence and consequence in Korean working contexts.

Wire melted mark metallographic image recognition and classification based on semantic segmentation

The recognition and classification of wire melted marks is crucial in modern fire investigation. The existing technology mainly uses physical or chemical methods to deal with wire melted marks and draws conclusions through manual observation, or manually extracts the features and train classification model, both of which consume excessive manpower and resources. The research on automatic feature extraction and recognition of wire weld marks by artificial intelligence technology is still blank. Based on the data set of wire melted mark metallographic images provided by a city fire research institute, we proposed an algorithm to recognize the type of wire melted mark metallographic images based on artificial intelligence which can help fire fighters efficiently speculate the cause of fire. In the algorithm, the TransUnet network is used to segment the melted zone by semantic segmentation to extract the melted zone containing the main features, and the mIOU reaches 92.2%. Then, the features of wire melted mark are extracted based on the melted zone image. Finally, XGBoost is used for feature modeling for classification. The F1 Score of model is 82.9%.

Analysis of the Community Satisfaction Index at Satpol Pp and Damkar of South Bengkulu Regency

Good public service refers to a person's level of satisfaction with what is received, either an individual's relationship with an individual or an individual's relationship with a government agency. Government agencies as public service providers have efforts to improve the quality of public services, one of which is the Civil Service Police Unit and Fire Department of South Bengkulu Regency. To obtain and analyze data on the level of public satisfaction with the implementation of public services that have been provided by the Civil Service Police Unit and the Fire Department of South Bengkulu Regency. Research methods can be interpreted as tools to answer certain questions and to solve scientific or practical problems. In this study the authors used descriptive quantitative research methods. Based on the results of research and discussion, it can be concluded as follows: Based on the calculation of the Community Satisfaction Index which refers to Kepmenpan RB No. 25 of 2018, the Satpol PP and Fire Fighters Office of South Bengkulu Regency obtained an IKM Conversion result of 50.5. The performance of the Mungkid District Office service unit is in the "C" service quality with the "Good Enough" category. This shows that the overall service performance of the South Bengkulu Regency Satpol PP and Fire Department Office in 2015 is in the good category.

A novel three-value grid scheme and rescue path planning algorithm for building fire

The 0-1 grid method is commonly used to divide a fire building into fully passable and fully impassable areas. Firefighters are only able to perform rescue tasks in the fully passable areas. However, in an actual building fire environment, there are three types of areas: fully impassable areas (areas blocked by obstacles or with heavy smoke and fire), fully passable areas, and partially passable areas (areas without obstacles or fire, but with some smoke risk). Due to the urgency of rescue, firefighters can consider conducting rescue tasks in both fully passable and partially passable areas to save valuable rescue time. To address this issue, we propose a three-value grid method, which classifies the fire environment into fully impassable areas, fully passable areas, and partially passable areas, represented by 1, 0, and 0.5, respectively. Considering that the ACO algorithm is prone to local optimum, we propose an enhanced ant colony algorithm (EACO) to solve the fire rescue path planning problem. The EACO introduces an adaptive heuristic function, a new pheromone increment strategy, and a pheromone segmentation rule to predict the shortest rescue path in the fire environment. Moreover, the EACO takes into account both the path length and the risk to balance rescue effectiveness and safety. Experiments show that the EACO obtains the shortest rescue path, which demonstrates its strong path planning capability. The three-value grid method and the path planning algorithm take reasonable application requirements into account.

A numerical analysis on the drainage capacity of a ropax vessel in the garage deck, in still water and in waves

The ropax vessels are designed to provide the transfer of vehicles, cargo, and passengers and to ensure maximum comfort and safety. The absence of a transversal subdivision for all vessel length poses serious threats to ship safety in case of flooding of the garage deck. When the floodwater is not properly and efficiently drained overboard it can have detrimental consequences both on ship stability, due to large free surface effects and, on loads on deck structures due to the pressure of the accumulated water.In this paper, we propose and apply a fast numerical method for the study of the drainage capacity in the garage deck of a ropax vessel assuming a passive drainage system i.e. comprising only scuppers, whereas the investigated flooding scenario depends on fire fighting operations.The effectiveness of the drainage system is simulated accounting for ship dynamics in calm water and in waves, by adopting a hybrid non-linear numerical model. Flooded water is modelled by lumped mass method; the couplings between ship and floodwater dynamics is achieved by the apparent gravity technique. Two scupper configurations are considered, by modifying scupper dimensions and positions on board. Several numerical simulations are carried out assuming also partially inefficient scuppers. The analysis of the obtained results can provide a general support for the design of passive drainage systems. Based on the outcomes of the case study, this research discloses an improvement in the drainage system when more scuppers are allocated at the stern zone.