Fire Escape Research Articles

Mechanisms Enabling a Fire Sensitive Plant to Survive Frequent Fires in South-West Australian Eucalypt Forests

A fire sensitive plant, Banksia quercifolia R.Br., that often occurs as thickets embedded in forest landscapes in south-west Australia was exposed to repeated broad-scale fires at short intervals. Fire severity and patchiness was mapped using satellite imagery and the response of the B. quercifolia population monitored. Over the study period, the mean interval of fire in the landscape in which B. quercifolia occurred was 1.7 yr—almost half the juvenile period of the species—and the landscape fire frequency was six fires per decade. The population increased in response to episodes of fire escape and fire-caused mortality and consequent regeneration. Unlike surrounding vegetation, immature B. quercifolia thickets were not flammable under conditions of mild weather and moist fuels, so they burnt at a lower frequency than more flammable vegetation in the surrounding landscape, enabling the species to persist. When the thickets had developed sufficiently to burn, the plants had reached maturity and regenerated readily from seed. However, the juvenile period increased by 58 % following a period of 16 % below average rainfall, which has implications for fire management in a drying climate.

On and On: Appalachian Accent and Academic Power

On and OnAppalachian Accent and Academic Power Meredith McCarroll (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution When my mom told me to put my coat on, those words rhymed. She told me to call her when I was on the road. And those words rhymed. To my Appalachian tongue, “own” and “on” were pronounced exactly the same way. But not for the rest of the world, I learned. This reminder that I was not from around here meant, to me, that I might not belong in a Boston graduate school. All illustrations by Natalie Nelson, 2016. [End Page 44] “Let’s go around the room and say where we’re from.” It was my first day in a class called “Experiencing Appalachia” during my first year of college. “Raleigh,” someone said. “Just outside of Charlotte,” said another. “High Point.” The professor continually nodded as the circle made its way to me. “Haywood County,” I said. Her eyebrows raised in respect. My home was only about a hundred winding miles from the classroom in which I was sitting, but “Haywood County” suddenly became more than a place to me. It was a marker of identity. On day one of class, I learned that the region’s boundaries have been constantly contested. I was told that migratory patterns explain some of the dialects of the mountains. And I came to understand that I was Appalachian. I knew that I was a mountain girl. My family had been in Haywood County for generations and one branch of my family tree started or stopped—depending on your perspective—when the Cherokee were marched through. But I had to take a class called “Experiencing Appalachia” to even know that I was Appalachian. To “experience” the region, we studied Foxfire magazines like those that had lined the bookshelves in my childhood living room. We practiced churning butter. We read about quilting. Some of this resonated with me because it was familiar. My Granny painstakingly taught me to quilt one summer, which mostly meant that I spent time watching her pull out all of my sloppy handwork. My Granny and Pa, who lived next door, canned homegrown tomatoes and green beans. I knew the difference between half-runners and blue lakes, and know of no sound more satisfying than the pop of lids sealing on the kitchen counter in the late afternoon. But there were plenty of Appalachian traditions that I did not know. And there was nothing markedly Appalachian that we did because we had to. It is true that I [End Page 45] had eaten groundhog on camping trips and could name most of the local peaks by sight, but it is also true that I bought incense and spirulina at a health food store in Asheville. I ate more tempeh than I did fatback, and I loved Ani DiFranco and Doc Watson equally. Click for larger view View full resolution It is true that I had eaten groundhog on camping trips and could name most of the local peaks by sight, but it is also true that I bought incense and spirulina at a health food store in Asheville. I ate more tempeh than I did fatback, and I loved Ani DiFranco and Doc Watson equally. After graduation, I moved to Boston and became, for the first time, an outsider. Like so many before me, it took leaving home to understand it. I suddenly saw details in contrast and became proud of my heritage. I grew tomatoes on the fire escape because it connected me to my Granny, whose tomatoes were a month ahead and a foot taller. As distance helped me understand what it meant to be from the mountains, I began to deeply miss them. I felt like Ivy Rowe in Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies who says that she’s like her daddy because she needs a mountain to “set her eyes against.” Yet while I was proud of my home, I was also learning that powerful stereotypes about Appalachia had arrived in places like Boston well before me and had influenced the way that even the most considerate people thought about me. The banjo lick from...

어린이집 및 유치원의 화재 대피용 안전 경로 시스템 제안

Day-care centers and kindergartens are increasing along with the damage caused by fire year after year. Infants and toddlers have a low response capability than adults to fire situations such as heavy smoke which causes less or zero visibility thus it is difficult in evacuation route during dangerous fire situations. Because of these circumstances, teachers need to build a safe pathway signage system along with the usual fire safety training needs of infants and children. In this paper, we propose a system for fire escape which marks the escape routes and are automatically implemented through the push function that smartphone recognizes during the real-time fire situation, and establish a system that verifies its authenticity.

Symbols and Sexual Perversion of Laura Wingfield in Tennesse Willimas’s The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie, a play written by Tennessee Williams, is full of symbols in which some of them refer to the sexual perversion in the character of the play such as Laura Wingfield. The research applied library research by taking data from the script of the play, then analysed based on the two theories, those were the theory of symbol and psychological theory called sexual perversions. The symbols in this play was analyzed, especially those related to Laura Wingfield. There were symbols like the glass collection, glass unicorn, blue roses, fire escape and Jim O’Connor which explained the sexual perversion of Laura Wingfield. These symbols were clues to understand the psycological problems suffered by Laura. It can be concluded that The cause of the strange sexual desire is because of her being abnormal because she is crippled and suffers from pleurosis.

Airborne Sound Insulation Performance of Window and Indoor Noise Level in the Balcony Expanded Apartments

Purpose: The balcony in the apartment is important space not only as a fire escape but also as a buffer for heat and sound insulation. However, with the legalization of balcony expansion for residential apartments in Korea in 2006, many households have eliminated the balcony space altogether to increase the inner space, often without sufficient consideration for the effects on the indoor environment. This study examined the sound insulation performance of exterior-facing windows in enclosed balconies and the changes in the indoor acoustic environment due to expansion to provide a basis for appropriate balcony expansion. The apartments for the field test were chosen where two balcony types can be compared, and the sound insulation performance for the eighteen balcony windows was measured. The windows installed were typical double window with thickness 16 mm or 22 mm. Measurements of the weighted standard sound pressure level difference showed a decrease of about 3 dB in sound insulation performance due to expansion. For common exterior noise levels of 70-85 dB(A), the indoor noise level can exceed 45 dB(A), the limit level regulated in Korea. However, it was found that the sound insulation performance of the window and the quality of the construction have more influence on indoor noise levels than balcony expansion itself.

Applicability of Virtual Reality in the Study of Environmental Stress

People’s behavior in the fire circumstances of the high-rise building is a typical study instance of environmental stresses. We replicated this scene in our virtual environment using Unity 3D. The technology creates a virtual environment by combining 3D modeling technology, computer graphics, wide-angle stereo display and a series of hardware and software technologies. The project built a high-rise building fire escape system which providing a highly immersive virtual environment and giving participants a more realistic experience. Virtual reality was used to simulate the fire scene, and data of how people reacted was collected to analyze the credibility and effectiveness of virtual environment on studying environmental stresses.

“Worried About Them When We Left”: A Mixed-Methods Essay

The purpose of this visual inquiry using ethnographic photographic research was to examine fire safety in homes of 42 urban older adults. Photographs were taken to document home fire safety (HFS) practices and grouped according to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Home Safety Checklist categories. Participants had a mean age of 74 years, and were mostly African American (n=21, 57%), and female (n=32, 78%). Major findings from the photographs demonstrated unsafe electrical, cooking, and heating practices. Other HFS hazards related to installation and maintenance of carbon monoxide (CO) and smoke alarms, smoking safety, and identification and practice of home fire escape plans. The findings will provide future direction for community education and fire prevention advocacy for older adults.

Implementation of a fire-prevention injury prevention briefing in children's centres: a multicentre cluster-randomised controlled trial

BackgroundEngland has high morbidity and mortality from house fires, with steep social gradients for child deaths: 106 people were admitted to hospital in 2012–13, and 44 deaths between 2008 and 2012 were in children under 5 years old. We developed an evidence-based fire-prevention intervention for use in children's centres comprising an injury prevention briefing (IPB), training, and facilitation for IPB implementation. MethodsWe conducted a multicentre cluster-randomised controlled trial, with a nested qualitative study, in four English study sites. Parents who were at least 16 years old with a child younger than 3 years were recruited from children's centres in disadvantaged areas. Once 30 parent participants were recruited at each centre, centres were stratified by trial site, randomly allocated within strata to one of three arms by an independent statistician using randomisation algorithm in Stata with permuted block randomisation and block size of three: IPB plus facilitation (IPB+), IPB only, and usual care (control). Training (month 0) and facilitation were provided for centres allocated IPB+ at months 1, 3, and 8. Both intervention arms completed follow-up interviews at 12 months. The primary outcome was the proportion of families reporting a fire-escape plan. 11 centres per arm were required to detect an absolute difference of 20% or more in families with fire-escape plans in either intervention arm compared with control (80% power, 5% significance level, intraclass correlation (ICC)=0·05), assuming responses from 20 families per centre. Treatment arms were compared by use of multilevel models to account for clustering by centre. Ethics approval was given by Derbyshire ethics committee (11/EM/0011). Written informed consent was obtained from individual parents and children's centres. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01452191. Findings1112 parents at 36 centres were recruited (373 IPB+, 369 IPB only, 370 control). At 12 months 751 (68%) parents (241 IPB+, 252 IPB only, 258 control) were followed up. Possession of a fire-escape plan was reported by 120 (51%) IPB+ participants, 108 (44%) IPB only, and 119 (47%) controls. There was no significant effect on family possession of fire-escape plans (IPB+ vs control odds ratio 1·41, 95% CI 0·91–2·20; IPB only vs control 0·93, 0·58–1·49 [ICC=0·003]). No adverse events were reported. InterpretationThe IPB, training, and facilitation did not increase parents' possession of fire-escape plans. Both the difficulties faced by children's centres in delivering the intervention to participating families and the secondary outcomes help to explain this outcome. Further research is required to explore both enhancement of penetration of interventions, such as the IPB, to disadvantaged communities and what single item questions about fire escape plans actually measure. FundingNational Institute for Health Research under its Programme Grants for Applied Research programme (RP-PG-0407-10231).

Incêndio em edificações hospitalares: conhecimento dos profissionais de enfermagem sobre prevenção, combate e escape

This study analyzes the knowledge and conduct of nursing professionals regarding hospital fire prevention, combat and escape. A descriptive study conducted in a public teaching hospital in Goiânia/GO, Brazil, with 109 nursing professionals. Data was collected in 2011 using structured interviews with questionnaires, and descriptive statistics for analysis. Most subjects were female, nursing technicians/assistants (67.9%), knew the Fire Department’s number (85.3%) and the extinguisher’s location (80.7%), but ignored how they functioned (69.7%). Also, 57.8% of interviewees ignored the exit routes and, in case of fire, would alert the fire department, guide people towards the exit, use the extinguisher or jump out of the windows. The gaps identified in this study indicate that in order to guarantee adequate conduct, fire training is necessary, as is the establishment of escape routes, since technological resources are useless without individuals who can act preventively. Risk reduction implies in institutional safety and quality.doi: 10.5216/ree.v16i2.25054

Letter to the editors: a view from and on the window.

One author, Diana Anderson, is a physician and an architect whose career is aimed at bridging the gap that exists between medicine, research, and architecture in order to improve design and operational efficiency of the clinical environment. She has worked in many hospitals and healthcare environments that are not supportive of staff well being nor sometimes even patient healing. Dr. Anderson often uses clinical anecdotes in her writing, linking them back to design in order to increase awareness of design's impact among her clinical colleagues. A recently published piece in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Anderson & Hamilton, 2014) recounted her experience with critical care unit delirium and the potential impact of windows on a patient's physiologic response; a synopsis of this encounter is detailed below.The other author, Penelope Ann Shaw (Penny), is a nursing home resident who has been living in a facility in a bed by a window for 11 years. She is a survivor of critical care (having spent 4 months in an ICU on life support) from an acute phase of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neuromuscular disorder in which a person's immune system damages the nerve cells, in her case causing almost total paralysis. That was followed by a year in a respiratory rehabilitation hospital. Of the 11 years in her current facility, she was mostly in bed for 3½ years with a tracheostomy and a feeding tube.Penny reached out to Diana after reading that piece in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in order to relate her story of how a window changed her experience dramatically while in long-term care. They teamed up to write a piece that builds on the topic of windows and exterior views. In the following sections, they provide insight into how these architectural elements can be life changing for patients and of vital importance for staff.Penny's Patient PerspectiveDuring these many years in my nursing home I've had the good luck to have a bed next to a large 5' by 6' window. The light streams through with daily and seasonal changes. I see light, bright warm sunshine, sunrise and sunset, lightning, overcast skies, and fog. The color of the sky alternately may be white, light or dark grey, blue, red, or leave my window completely black in the middle of the night. Sometimes the clouds in various formations may be visible.There is a beautiful maple tree directly outside my window with a building behind that I enjoy for its architectural details including rounded and circular windows. There is a wooden fire escape up and down which people walk. I follow the tree seasonally from the empty dark limbs of winter sometimes frosted in snow, to the early yellowish-green buds of spring, to the mature dark green of summer, to the autumn changes of red, orange, yellow, and brown, after which the cycle begins again. The motion and force of the wind brushes snow off the tree in flurries and leaves off the tree in great abundance.Staff members use my window to check the weather, see how much snow is falling and whether they'll have to scrape their cars after the storm. It's a conversation opener for them to stop for a moment in their busy schedule and chat.The sounds I hear through the window are another source of pleasure. The wind may be soft and mild or harsh and howling. When it rains there are the sounds of thunder, and other times the delicate pings and spatterings of rain and snow against the pane. Sometimes the droplets fall in many straight lines side by side, appearing like a beaded curtain that makes the window opaque, letting little light in between. The windowpane is a canvas for the elements to draw abstract geometric patterns that can absorb and distract me, creating a form of entertainment for several minutes. Another sound I hear through the window is that of the whistle of an Amtrak train going by, reminding me of people traveling from place to place, living their lives, enjoyably I hope, connecting me with the larger world. …

Escape behavior in factory workshop fire emergencies: a multi-agent simulation

In this study, a multi-agent simulation is conducted to explore the relationship between fire escape survival rate and occupants' risk preferences and stress capacity. The results indicate that, the escape survival rates for occupants with different risk preferences and stress capacities can be significantly different. More specifically, the simulation shows that the smaller the number of occupants is in a fire, the higher the survival rate can be expected. In addition, the simulation shows that the larger the number of individuals with stronger stress capacities is in a group, the higher the escape survival rate the group has. Moreover, the simulation shows that the more disperse the individuals' risk preferences is in a group, the higher the escape survival rate the group has. Based on the simulation results, the paper proposes a framework of E-evacuation system to guide the rational escape and evacuation when enterprise workshop fire occurs. Suggestions for increasing escape survival rates during fires are provided.

Way-finding during a fire emergency: an experimental study in a virtual environment

The way-finding behaviour and response during a fire emergency in a virtual environment (VE) was experimentally investigated. Forty participants, divided into two groups, were required to find the emergency exit as soon as possible in a virtual hotel building because of a fire escape demand under condition 1 (VE without virtual fire, control group) and condition 2 (VE with virtual fire, treatment group). Compared to the control group, the treatment group induced significantly higher skin conductivity and heart rate, experienced more stress, took longer time to notice the evacuation signs, had quicker visual search and had a longer escape time to find the exit. These results indicated that the treatment condition induced higher physiological and psychological stress, and had influenced the escape behaviour compared to the control group. In practice, fire evacuation education and fire evacuation system design should consider the response characteristics in a fire emergency.

Multicentre cluster randomised controlled trial evaluating implementation of a fire prevention Injury Prevention Briefing in children's centres: study protocol.

BackgroundThe UK has one of the highest fatality rates for deaths from fire-related injuries in children aged 0–14 years; these injuries have the steepest social gradient of all injuries in the UK. Children’s centres provide children under five years old and their families with a range of services and information, including home safety, but their effectiveness in promoting injury prevention has yet to be evaluated. We developed a fire prevention intervention for use in children’s centres comprising an Injury Prevention Briefing (IPB) which provides evidence on what works and best practice from those running injury prevention programmes, and a facilitation package to support implementation of the IPB. This protocol describes the design and methods of a trial evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the IPB and facilitation package in promoting fire prevention.Methods/DesignPragmatic, multicentre cluster randomised controlled trial, with a nested qualitative study, in four study centres in England. Children’s centres in the most disadvantaged areas will be eligible to participate and will be randomised to one of three treatment arms comprising: IPB with facilitation package; IPB with no facilitation package; usual care (control). The primary outcome measure will be the proportion of families who have a fire escape plan at follow-up. Eleven children’s centres per arm are required to detect an absolute difference in the percentage of families with a fire escape plan of 20% in either of the two intervention arms compared with the control arm, with 80% power and a 5% significance level (2-sided), an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.05 and assuming outcomes are assessed on 20 families per children’s centre. Secondary outcomes include the assessment of the cost-effectiveness of the intervention, other fire safety behaviours and factors associated with degree of implementation of the IPB.DiscussionThis will be the first trial to develop and evaluate a fire prevention intervention for use in children’s centres in the UK. Its findings will be generalisable to children’s centres in the most disadvantaged areas of the UK and may also be generalisable to similar interventions to prevent other types of injury.Trial registrationhttp://NCT01452191 (date of registration: 13/10/2011).

Community partnership to promote home fire safety in children with special needs

BackgroundParents of children with special needs are vigilant as their child may have difficulty independently escaping a burning home. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if providing home fire safety information via a digital video disc (DVD) increases families’ knowledge, behavior and ability regarding home fire safety. MethodsA school based classroom intervention (using a home fire safety DVD) was provided to parents (n=40) of children with and without special needs to improve home fire safety knowledge, behavior and ability. In addition, parents seen at the Kentucky Commission for Children with Special Health Care Needs clinics (n=47) received the same intervention in cohorts of 1–2 children. For both groups, knowledge, and behavior were measured before and after intervention. Repeated measures ANOVA were used to test for differences between groups and over time. Significance was set at p<0.05. ResultsNo difference in scores between pre- and post-test scores existed between groups (with special needs vs. without special needs, or classroom vs. individualized instruction). However, some differences were noted for some individual survey questions during post-hoc comparisons. Having a smoke alarm in the home (90% vs. 95%, p=0.029) and having a smoke alarm outside of where everyone sleeps (75% vs. 95%, p=0.005) increased over time and was retained. Having a fire escape plan increased at post intervention (58% vs. 79%, p=0.033), but returned to pre levels at follow-up (58%). Perceived knowledge (7.7 vs. 9.3, p<0.001) and ability (8.7 vs. 9.1, p=0.069) increased over time. Implication for practiceParents of children with special needs had a significant increase in knowledge and behavior over those parents of children without special needs. They also perceived having a high fire safety ability. Many of the post-test questions/behaviors (e.g., capable of exiting home during a fire, etc.) were reported at 100%. The intervention was well received, but may not necessarily be needed. Focus for home fire safety may need to look at younger children and smaller families. Parents of special needs children may have had frequent interaction with health care professionals.

公路隧道蓄能自发光型防火灾应急逃生系统

本文分析公路隧道事故特点及多发原因，论述我国目前公路隧道防火、安全逃生设计要求及存在的问题、运营期隧道应急救援措施及问题；在此基础上提出设置隧道蓄能自发光型防火灾应急逃生系统的必要性，并分析蓄能自发光型防火灾应急逃生系统的系统组成、蓄能自发光型材料的技术要求和逃生引导标识；最后，结合我国目前公路隧道的应急逃生系统、应急救援措施，提出相应的建议。The features of road tunnel accidents and reasons for its frequent occurrence are analyzed; the problems that exist in the present requirements for fire prevention and emergency escape design of road tunnel are discussed. Accordingly, the necessity of equipping road tunnel with energy sto-rage self-illuminating system is pointed out. The composition, technical requirement of energy storage self-illuminating material, and evacuation signage are analyzed as well. Finally, some sug-gestions for present emergency escape system and emergency rescue measures of roads tunnel are proposed.

Using Agent-based Simulation Model for Studying Fire Escape Process in Metro Stations

The Hong Kong Metro System has been operating for more than 30 years. With the increase in population, some of the stations are crowded in most time of a day. To facilitate the design and the alteration works for a station, the crowding and passenger movement pattern, especially the escape pattern in case of fire, should be studied. This article illustrated an agent-based people movement model, and a case targeting at the people movement pattern and egress process in a metro station has been studied. The simulation results demonstrate that the model is useful for assisting building designers to evaluate different design alternatives and to support fire safety performance studies.

Discussion on Design of Double-Deck Traffic Concrete Box Girder for City Bridge

For layout space in the limited land resources and improving the utilization efficiency of urban transportation bridge and traffic conditions, in this paper, according to the request of four lanes of roof, two-way urban light rail traffic in the box, considering the requirements of pipeline layout, water supply and drainage, and fire escape, lighting, ventilated at the same time, based on the existing related specification, give full play to the characteristics of the concrete box girder, preliminarily design out of the single box three rooms inclined web box girder for double-deck traffic of urban bridge, in order to provide the reference design.

EVALUATION OF FIRE PROTECTION METHODS OF STEEL STRUCTURES

One of the most significant problems encountered in steel structures is their insufficient fire resistance. This problem is eliminated by protecting structural steel elements through active and passive protection methods. Active methods are fire extinguishing systems implemented to make fire ineffective by controlling the fire as of its beginning. Passive methods are protective applications designed for steel structures by considering the emergence possibility of fire. In addition to such precautions, fire escape points should be identified during design stage of the building by taking emergence of fire into consideration. Regulations arrange rules regarding locations of fire-escape, their distance to the escape points, etc. In this study, fire protection methods of steel structures are evaluated in compliance with requirements of Fire codes.

The Application of BIM-Enabled Facility Management System in Complex Building

Facility Management (FM) is well known for its interdisciplinary knowledge and along with the growing number of green buildings and low-carbon buildings, the FM system become increasingly complex. Many practitioners consider Building Information Modeling (BIM) as the most important technology to bring about improvements. The purpose of this paper is to develop a BIM-enabled FM system which integrates FM, BIM and building management system to improve information sharing and monitoring, FM system control, and equipment management. A case study is implemented to validate the feasibility of the BIM-enabled FM system. Four functionalities are demonstrated in detail: Equipment Information Monitoring (EIM), Dynamic Data Display and Warning (D3W), Energy-Saving Analysis (ESA), and Intelligent Fire Escape Route (IFER). The results show that BIM-enabled FM system facilitates the FM more accurate, timely, safe and efficient.

Contemporary hazards in the home: keeping children safe from thermal injuries

ObjectiveTo explore the knowledge and reported thermal injury prevention practices among parents of children aged 0–4 years in disadvantaged areas.MethodsParents of pre-school children in Children's Centres in four study areas...