Fire Evacuation Research Articles

Study on Urban Fire Evacuation by Residents’ Mutual-Help Focused on the Role of Temporary Evacuation Area

Study on Urban Fire Evacuation by Residents’ Mutual-Help Focused on the Role of Temporary Evacuation Area

Research on a subway fire evacuation model based on system dynamics

Research on a subway fire evacuation model based on system dynamics

A dynamic risk assessment model for evacuation in healthcare facilities during fire scenarios

Evacuation is a critical procedure for safeguarding individuals during a fire incident within a healthcare facility. Assessing the risk associated with the evacuation process is instrumental in enhancing emergency decision-making and developing contingency strategies. Evacuation, a dynamic process, poses challenges in accurate risk evaluation using conventional static quantitative risk assessment (QRA) techniques. This study introduces a dynamic QRA approach to precisely evaluate the evacuation risk to individuals in healthcare settings during a fire. The dynamic event tree methodology is initially utilized to determine the evolving probabilities of various fire scenarios, considering the equipment failure and repair rates. Subsequently, data on fire products and the evacuation of individuals under different fire scenarios are gathered through simulations conducted with Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and Pathfinder software. In addition, this research proposes a dynamic incapacitation model to calculate the consequences of fire, incorporating changes in individuals' locations and the fire products surrounding them during evacuation to accurately estimate the casualty risk. Lastly, the dynamic scenario probability was integrated with the average incapacitation probability for all individuals, introducing the concept of a fire evacuation safety time window to comprehensively assess hospital fire evacuation risk. The findings revealed that the dynamic quantitative risk analysis (DQRA) approach more effectively captures the influence of fire products on the evacuation risk compared to static methods. Specifically, the peak incapacitation probability in a hospital fire reached 0.85, with firefighting equipment, especially the sprinkler system, reducing this risk by over 97% and decreasing evacuation time by 45%. In addition, the risk of fire evacuation in hospitals reaches a critical threshold in the fourth year, enhancing the repair rate of the firefighting system postpones the risk's escalation to a critical threshold until the fourteenth year.

The John Sealy Hospital Fire Evacuation.

Advances in fire safety and building construction have made fires in modern health care facilities uncommon and easily contained. Therefore, emergent hospital evacuations resulting from an internal fire are rare. On January 4, 2017, a fire occurred at the John Sealy Hospital, part of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, resulting in emergent evacuation of the hospital building and an adjacent office and patient care building. The internal emergency response system was quickly activated, and more than 100 patients and 200 staff members were evacuated within 27 minutes with no fire- or smoke-related injuries. Obstacles encountered during the evacuation process included difficulties with communication and confirming patient count in a timely manner. This article describes the emergent hospital evacuation during the fire, summarizes the subsequent reflections of a multiagency after-action review, and issues a call to action for further research and publication on emergency patient evacuation.

AHP-FCE를 활용한 중국 피난안내도 최적화 설계 연구 - Chung Hua University(CHU) 도서관을 중심으로

In large indoor public spaces such as office buildings and shopping malls, the complex architectural layout and dense population increase the difficulty of emergency evacuation. In the event of a fire or other disaster, the lack of effective evacuation measures can lead to significant casualties and property loss. This paper studies fire evacuation maps in China based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) methods, aiming to improve the cognitive efficiency and user experience of evacuation maps. The study first constructs a hierarchical index system for evacuation maps, determines the weights of various design elements, and forms a judgment matrix through evaluations by experts and users. Then, the optimized evacuation map undergoes a comprehensive evaluation analysis. The results show that clarity and functionality are the two aspects users are most concerned about, with the recognizability of signage and the accuracy of location information being particularly important. The optimized evacuation map shows significant improvements in clarity and information transmission, effectively guiding people to quickly escape in emergencies. This study validates the rationality and feasibility of the AHP-FCE method in the design of fire evacuation maps, providing new ideas and directions for further optimization of evacuation maps.

Evaluasi Sistem Evakuasi Kebakaran pada Kantor Wilayah Direktorat Jenderal Bea Cukai Kalimantan Bagian Selatan

Banjarmasin is one of Indonesia’s ten provinces that are historically prone to fire. To prevent many life losses due to building fire, a building must comply with existing standards and regulations. Therefore, the fire evacuation system was evaluated at the South Kalimantan Regional Office of the Directorate General of Customs. In this research, the method used is descriptive with an evaluative analysis approach where the building data will be compared to related standards and regulations. From this research, it is proven that several fire evacuation system facilities in the building still do not comply with the existing standards and regulations, such as the number of emergency stairs, emergency exits, and the height of handrails on the stairs.

Occupant complacency in workplace fire evacuations

This study explored occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations. It is targeted at those responsible for fire safety management and fire safety practitioners with a contribution to prevent or mitigate the risk of injury or death arising out of a delayed evacuation at work. It seeks to define occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations, identify its antecedents and explore effective measures to mitigate or control the antecedents of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations. Research was conducted using a survey instrument by contacting safety, health and fire safety professionals globally through convenience sampling and several international safety, health and fire safety-related institutions. This included demographics of the respondents, the confirmation of a definition of complacency, and means of dealing with complacency as defined by the questionnaire including priority strategies. The research team then sought to identify the antecedents of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations using raw data from a previous study. This study addresses the hypothesis that if there is a clear definition of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations and control measures are developed, tested and implemented, the risks of injury and death related to occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations could be prevented or mitigated. Analysis of survey findings clarified a number of key strategies to avoid evacuation complacency including but not limited to underscoring the importance of leadership involvement within a safety culture; training and education, awareness raising and communications to avoid occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations; evacuation drills; procedures, and the role of fire wardens. Based on information from a published report that explored individual attitudes, perceptions and experiences as well as perceived vulnerability that shape antecedents of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations and individual behaviours when an evacuation alarm is initiated, the authors identified and filled a gap in the report, by suggesting a working definition of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations and control measures to prevent or mitigate this behaviour.

Evacuation safety assessment in corridor-type high-rise building under fires

This study aims to elucidate the characteristics of personnel evacuation in corridor-type high-rise building under fires and to assess their evacuation performance. Utilizing Building EXODUS software, the study simulated the evacuation behavior of occupants, particularly focusing on the impact of corridor structures on the building's fire evacuation capabilities. A performance evaluation model was developed, which incorporates factors such as building conditions and natural environments. This model employs an enhanced Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) combined with Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) analysis for more accurate assessment. The findings reveal that traditional evacuation performance assessment methods, which often overlook the impacts of corridor location, time of day, and illumination conditions, are not adequately suited for the evaluation of evacuation performance in corridor-type high-rise building under fires. Under similar external conditions, the evacuation time for buildings with connecting corridors is significantly shorter than that for conventional high-rise buildings, showing reductions of 25.0 %–34.0 % at the same time of day and 26.0 %–37.8 % under the same illumination conditions. Additionally, nighttime evacuations are 29.4 % longer than those conducted during daytime. The implementation of a layered evacuation strategy reduces evacuation time by 9.7 % compared with free evacuation methods. The enhanced model proposed in this study provides a more effective framework for assessing the evacuation performance of corridor-type high-rise buildings.

Enhanced forest fire evacuation planning using real-time sensor and GPS algorithm

Forest fires are the source of countless fatalities and extreme economic repercussions. The safe evacuation of residents of an area affected by forest fires is the highest priority of local authorities, and finding the most optimal course of action has been a primary research focus for years. Previous studies over several decades have attempted to find an optimal solution using the applications of bug navigation systems, road network reconfiguration, graph traversals, swarm optimization, etc. The author, with the motivation to prevent human casualties at the time of such calamity, presents a novel study which solves the problem in nearly linear time computation, surpassing the performance standards of previous research, and accommodates the unpredictability of the spread of forest fires. This includes a proposal of an algorithm which builds upon the application of Spielman and Teng’s Electrical Circuit Approach to solve for maximum flow in a network and implements this with real-time sensor and Global Positioning System input.

The Impact of Corridor Directional Configuration on Wayfinding Behavior during Fire Evacuation in Underground Spaces: An Empirical Study Based on Virtual Reality

The Impact of Corridor Directional Configuration on Wayfinding Behavior during Fire Evacuation in Underground Spaces: An Empirical Study Based on Virtual Reality

Perancangan Jalur Evakuasi Kebakaran PT. PCC dengan Metode Algoritma Dijkstra

Fires can occur at any time, therefore a mechanism is needed to evacuate the building in the event of a disaster. Generally, public facilities provide instructions and evacuation routes for exiting the building. PT. PCC has its headquarters in Australia. As for PT. PCC also opened a new factory located in Gresik Regency, East Java. The new factory does not yet have adequate fire evacuation routes. Even though inside the building there are materials and equipment that are flammable. Based on this, this research aims to design fire evacuation routes in PT buildings. PCC Gresik. The type of research used in this research is quantitative research. The method that the author applies is the Djikstra Algorithm to determine the shortest proposed route. The design of the evacuation route has 2 gathering points, namely at the front and back. There are 22 evacuation route signs, 6 exit signs, 2 gathering point signs, 2 emergency telephone signs and 10 Light Fire Extinguisher (APAR) signs. Evacuation route signs, exit signs and Light Fire Extinguisher (APAR) signs are planned to be installed on the walls. Assembly point signs and emergency telephone signs are installed on poles.

INFED: Enhancing fire evacuation dynamics through 3D congestion-aware indoor navigation framework

This paper introduces Indoor Navigation Framework for Fire Evacuation Dynamics (INFED), a novel indoor navigation framework that combines dynamic fire constraints and path congestion management. INFED considers the three-dimensional (3D) attributes of both the agents (speed, volume, location, count) and the environment (3D volume, congestion, corridor height, and corridor length) to estimate navigation routes that avoid fire-affected evacuation paths. It achieves this by integrating various proposed algorithms as modules: Environment Establisher, Fired/Safe Node Identifier, Pre-processor, Weighted Graph Generator, and Path Generator. The 3D features of the agent and environment are used to effectively estimate the capacity of the corridors in an indoor environment for the estimation of path congestion. The path congestion so computed is used during evacuation to identify the safest and congestion-free path. We discuss the performance of INFED by implementing it on various realistic scenarios in a commercial floor setup. We found that the incorporation of safety constraints results in longer evacuation routes, ranging from a 6% increase under mild fire and congestion conditions to a 40% increase under severe fire and congestion conditions. In the event of a worst-case scenario where fire-free paths are scarce, INFED utilizes congestion to reduce agent speed along the recommended evacuation route. This mechanism is activated when congestion surpasses a threshold of 0.3. The system can be used by stakeholders to test various evacuation hypotheses, which can lead to better preparedness and rescue operations, ultimately saving lives in the event of a fire.

The Impact of Pedestrian Lane Formation by Obstacles on Fire Evacuation Efficiency in the Presence of Unfair Competition

After a fire breaks out, pedestrians simultaneously move towards the exit and quickly form a crowded area near the exit. With the intensification of pedestrians’ tendencies towards unfair competition, there is an increase in pushing and collisions within the crowd. The possibility of stampedes within the crowd also gradually increases. Analyzing the causes and psychological tendencies behind pedestrian pushing and collisions has a positive effect on reducing crowd instability and improving evacuation efficiency. This research proposes a modified social force model considering the unfair competition tendency of pedestrians. The model considers factors such as the gap between pedestrians’ actual and maximum achievable speed, effective radius, and their distance from the exit. In order to overcome the shortage of “deadlock” in the classical social force model in a high-density environment, this research introduces the feature of variable pedestrian effective radius. The effective radius of pedestrians dynamically changes according to the density of the surrounding crowd and queuing time. Through validation, the evacuation efficiency of this model aligns well with the actual situation and effectively reflects pedestrians’ pushing and squeezing behaviors in high-density environments. This research also analyzes how to strategically arrange obstacles to mitigate the exacerbating effect of unfair pedestrian competition on exit congestion. Five experiments were conducted to analyze how the relative position of obstacles and exits, the number of evacuation paths, and the size of the obstacle-free area before the exit affect evacuation efficiency in the presence of unfair pedestrian competition. The results show that evacuation efficiency can be improved when obstacles play a role in guiding or reducing the interaction of pedestrians in different queues. However, when obstacles hinder pedestrians, the evacuation efficiency is reduced to a certain extent.

Development of FIVAROM-NET: Inclusive Learning Media for Fire Evacuation of Blind Students at SLBN Semarang

Development of FIVAROM-NET: Inclusive Learning Media for Fire Evacuation of Blind Students at SLBN Semarang

Intelligent planning of fire evacuation routes in buildings based on improved adaptive ant colony algorithm

Intelligent planning of fire evacuation routes is an important guarantee for rapid emergency response. Ant colony optimization, as an intelligent bionic algorithm, has notable advantages in route planning. However, traditional ant colony optimization corresponds to a low convergence rate, is easily caught in local optimal solution, and regards route length as the only constraint. To resolve these problems, an improved adaptive ant colony optimization (IAACO) algorithm was proposed in this study. Risk, energy consumption, and route length were taken as key factors to improve the heuristic function, optimize the pheromone update function, and establish multi-objective constraints, The standards for fire evacuation better align with practical requirements. Meanwhile, the adaptive pheromone volatile coefficient was introduced to balance convergence and global searching ability. In addition, the hazard range on the grid map was visualized. The results indicate that under various complex obstacle grid maps, the path inferiority of IAACO is reduced by 61.7% and 58.4%, 43.6% and 36.7%, and 41.6% and 67.7% compared to ACO and IACO, respectively; under the condition of multiple exits, the inferiority is reduced by 63.8% and 54.6%; under the condition of multiple fire sources, the inferiority is reduced by 40.1% and 34.6%; compared with other algorithms, IAACO shows the lowest path inferiority index, 26.6. IAACO is applicable to both the dynamic planning of fire evacuation routes and the evacuation simulation software, Pathfinder, and it performs better than the built-in algorithms of Pathfinder. Facts have proved that the IAACO algorithm significantly improves the safety level of evacuation compared to traditional evacuation methods and other optimization algorithms.

Multifactor dynamic coupled model for building fire evacuation: Case study of the Karamay Friendship Palace fire

Occupant evacuation during a building fire is a complex system that includes several highly coupled subsystems, such as building characteristics, occupant characteristics, fire behavior, and evacuation behavior. To study the interaction mechanism between these subsystems to maximize occupant safety during fire evacuation in a building, a multifactor dynamic coupled model based on the Fire Dynamic Simulator and floor field cellular automata model for occupant evacuation in a fire was established. In the model, the dynamic impact of smoke diffusion on occupant movement direction and speed, decrease in occupant health points caused by smoke and trampling, and changes in occupant exit choices in the presence of closed exits were considered in detail. The catastrophic fire accident in the Friendship Palace of Karamay, Xinjiang, China, in 1994 was used as the analysis case, in which the spatial model of the Friendship Palace was reconstructed according to real data and architectural design methods. The safety exits open or closed, radius Rtra, possibility of information transmission Psuc, and wait time twait were discussed to study the influence of these parameters on the evacuation process and results. The study shows that the model could reproduce a fire accident well with Rtra = 4, Psuc = 0.5, and twait = 30. The closed exits increased evacuation time by over 120.3 % and resulted in 439 deaths. These conclusions are important for providing better estimates, guiding architectural designs, and enhancing building safety management.

Failure probability Forecasting for the warning and evacuation management system in case of fire

This article discusses the issue of fire safety insurance in educational institutions based on warning and fire evacuation control systems reliability modeling and forecasting. It was shown that these institutions are need of warning and evacuation management systems. To identify failures of individual elements of a complex technical system, failures were monitored during a selected period. When using the calculation method, the probability of trouble-free operation of the elements of the equipment system was identified. Based on the statistical data, schemes of the probability of failure-free operation of the warning and evacuation management systems were constructed and failure probabilities were determined. Ways to increase the level of trouble-free operation were identified. The requirements for security systems to maintain the required level were considered. They include compliance with the international fire safety standards, regular checks of systems operability, employees training to react to signals triggered by a fire alarm, and evacuation. The high efficiency of the methodology for determining the probabilities of trouble-free operation of the system at various stages of facility design and commissioning was emphasized. The contribution of the methodology to the general calculation of fire risks was shown.

Wildland fire evacuations in Canada from 1980 to 2021

Background Every year, people in Canada are evacuated due to wildland fires to avoid death, injury, and illness from fire and smoke events. Aims In this paper, we provide an overview of evacuations recorded in the Canadian Wildland Fire Evacuation Database between 1980 and 2021. Methods Our analysis covers evacuations in Canada from 1980 to 2021. We provide summary statistics including number of evacuations and evacuees, evacuation duration, seasonality, evacuation causes, community types, structure losses, and fatalities. We also investigate temporal and spatial patterns. Key results Between 1980 and 2021, there were 1393 wildland fire evacuation events with 576,747 people evacuated. During this period, there was an overall increase in frequency of evacuations, number of evacuees, and duration of events. Structure loss occurred during 194 evacuation events, with 4105 homes burned. We estimate wildland fire evacuations cost at least CAD3.7 billion (excluding structural losses), jumping to CAD4.6 billion if we include productivity losses. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately impacted in wildfire evacuations compared to the general Canadian population. Conclusions Wildland fire evacuations continue to occur across Canada and are increasing. Implications The findings from this study give us a better understanding of the characteristics of wildland fire evacuations, which can help guide emergency management.

Simulation of Fire Evacuation in a Naturally Ventilated Bifurcated Tunnel

The natural wind velocities in tunnels under different natural conditions are distinct, and the longitudinal ventilation velocity significantly impacts the evacuation environment. This paper examines the evacuation conditions and strategies under varying wind velocities in bifurcated tunnels. Using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and Pathfinder software, the fire development and evacuation of three distinct longitudinal positions in a bifurcated tunnel are simulated. The simulation results demonstrate that the evacuation conditions for disparate fire sources at varying wind velocities are markedly disparate. In consideration of the construction cost and the maximization of evacuation capacity, the width of the evacuation doors at the three locations should be set to 2 m, 1.5 m, and 1.5 m, respectively. Furthermore, an analysis of the safety of individual personnel through Fractional Effective Dose (FED) revealed that directing evacuees towards the upstream of the fire after the fire is detected can significantly reduce individual personnel injuries while ensuring the overall success of the evacuation.

Self- and semi-supervised learning for evacuation time modeling within fire emergencies in nuclear power plants

Using neural networks for effective emergency response planning is essential to safeguard nuclear power plants and their surroundings swiftly and accurately during fire emergencies. However, achieving precise training of neural networks for fire evacuation modeling necessitates the collection of labeled data encompassing a variety of fire scenarios and their corresponding evacuation times. The acquisition of this labeled training dataset involves direct engagement in experimental simulations of evacuation times for diverse fire scenarios, accomplished through the application of the consolidated fire and smoke transport (CFAST) simulator. However, the endeavor to amass a diverse pool of labeled data imposes significant time and financial costs. To overcome this challenge, we propose using self- and semi-supervised learning to construct a metamodel that approximates the simulator and to improve the ability of neural networks that accurately predicts evacuation times even in situations with limited labeled data. The effectiveness of our proposed framework is demonstrated through the experimental results conducted on CFAST datasets, thus emphasizing its potential to develop nuclear safety guidelines based on neural networks.