Chapter 1. Introduction

Problem Statement

Fire can be deadly nightmare or an extremely useful tool for humans. For centuries, mankind has used fire for various purposes such as food cooking and power generation. Fire possesses dual characteristics as it can either frighten us or excite us. Human civilisation would not have been the same, had there been no fire. A large scale fire event can cause damage to both the property and humans. According to Tan and Hiew (2004), considerably monetary losses can occur if fires are allowed to get out of control. The first major fire outbreak in the UK which was recorded by the historians took place in 1136, causing substantial damage to the towns of York, Bath and London. Another notable fire event occurred in the year of 1966 in London that ended with 80 percent of the city turned into ashes. In recent years, the most notable incident of fire in high rise building occurred in the First Interstate Tower in Los Angeles. This fire event took place on 4 May 1988 and resulted in as many as 40 deaths.

Humans have always remained interested in the safety measures to prevent them against fire. In ancient times, humans used fire for the purpose of cooking, heating and lighting, but they were always careful of the deadly properties of fire. Accidents of misuse can result in disasters. The inherent risks of fire exist even today, and even through society has adopted sophisticated preventive measures, the risk has not been completely eliminated. As our civilization progressed, the interest in identifying ways to eliminate or reduce fire risks and understand the causes of fire outbreaks has also intensified.

High rise commercial and residential buildings are always vulnerable to the threat of fire. Occupants can be exposed to serious life threat if they are not educated about their responsibilities in the case of fire. Of course, the first challenge in this regard is to design high rise buildings that are capable of eliminating or at least reduce the risks of fires. Fire occurrences may be rare but that should not stop the owners, tenants, staff and occupants from getting them better educated about how to react to fire events. This is because the first five to ten minutes following the outbreak of fire can determine the extent of damage (Kruse, 1993).

Rationale

Building occupants often end up being the victims to fire, even though they are not at mistake. Occasionally, they may even burn to death in addition to getting their property and belonging damaged. Injuries and deaths occur when the occupants are not sure about what they must do in the event of fire. It is not possible to compensate such tragedies with money. Thus, it is critically important to educate the occupants about the precautionary measures that they must take in the event of fire. The compulsory and necessary safety measures should be provided by the owners of high rise buildings to prevent people against fire hazards. Owners may face prosecution if charges of negligence and irregularities are proven against them (Abdullah, 2001).

Although safety features of high rise buildings are usually very sophisticated, there still remains a question mark over the safety of occupants. Various factors such as human errors, negligence, carelessness, lack of fire extinguishing material and lack of fire safety training can contribute towards fire outbreaks, and therefore considerable amount of research has been performed in the area of fire safety management in high rise buildings over the last few years. The responsibility to ensure security and safety of high rise buildings must be shared by operations and maintenance staff, cleaners, residents/occupants, and owners, as argued by Tan and Hiew (2004). The fire incidents of Kuala Lumpur provide an insight into the fire safety management shortcomings that led to forgettable disasters and injuries. This research study intends to establish the most crucial aspects of fire safety management to prevent occupants of high rise buildings against fire.

 Research Aims and Objectives

The aim of this study is the investigate fire safety management in high rise buildings with the focus on safety of building residents.

Research Objectives

The research is carried out to:

• Understand and identify significant fire safety issues and their associated risks for the occupants of high rise buildings.
• Identify key aspects of fire safety management that can have an impact on the safety of occupants in high rise buildings
• Identify strategies related to safety of high rise buildings and their relation with occupants and building design.
• To establish the most important and critical aspects of fire safety management
• Determine the methods that can improve the fire safety performance of high rise buildings and its users.
• Understand the independent working of fire safety strategies in reducing the risks for occupants of high rise apartments.
• Understand that how factors such as evacuation experience, respondents demographics and building height leads to awareness and perception

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The Literature Review chapter of this research primarily investigates the characteristics and effects of fire including the nature of fire (Ignition, Combustion, and Pyrolysis). Sources of fire hazards in high rise buildings including the hazards presented by different materials such as textiles, plastics, wood and wood based products, gases and liquids will be discussed in detail under this section. Sources of oxidants, sources of heat energy i.e. mechanical heat energy, chemical heat energy, electrical heat energy, as well as the causes of fire in high rise buildings will be identified and discussed in detail by the researcher. The effects of fire and fire products and human behavior in fire emergencies will also be established by reviewing the available literature. Furthermore, different aspects of fire safety management system in high rise buildings such as preventive management, signage, pest control programmes and housekeeping practices, inspection, precaution, and renovation, fire and evacuation, and emergency response management will also be studied. A brief description of the literature that will be studied in the dissertation is given below.

The issues of fire or other safety concerns for the residents of high rise buildings is being discussed for over 100 years. However this issue was addressed even more after the incident of World Trade Center. Questions have raised regarding the safety of occupants and their relation with building design as well as fire management strategies. The question such as “how safe the residents of high rise apartments are from fire?” and “What are the fire safety measures/strategies in these buildings?” have become major concerns for building design professionals (Hall, 2001). The invention of secure emergency elevators and better developmental structures have made these high stories building possible. Usually a building having six or more stories is considered in the category (Lougheed, 1997). 

Fire Risk and High Rise Buildings

Risk is usually defined as the probability of an incident in a given fixed situation or consequences. Here the risk can be stated as:

Risk= Consequences x Probability

Therefore, one can calculate the risk to life from fire by examining all the consequences of fire happening events in all probable locations and buildings (Hall, 2001).In addition the incidents of fire in high rise buildings and their stats can also be directed from national fire protection reports of different countries available online. Some of the stats from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) are given below: (John R. Hall, 2013)

Table 1 Source :NFPA Report

The table above shows the figures of fire incidents in the past years with respective damages and casualties. The last column shows the percentage of high rise buildings in which these fire incidents happens. This chart shows that that risks and deaths through fire incident are related with the height of the building where almost 10 % of the buildings in which these accidents happened were High-rise (Hall, 2013).

What Is Unique About Fire Safety for High-Rise Building?

From the above mentioned figures, it is evident that fire incidents are responsible for hazardous effects both to the occupants as well as for the building itself. But the question arise that why the risk is perceived to be higher in high-rise buildings. This question can be answered through following descriptions.

• Egress Systems: Whenever there is fire there is always a rush and crowd. In high –rise buildings there are more stories consequently more people. So everyone rush to stairs in case of emergence resulting in crowding and slow movement. The stairs of course are quite long so the time taken by the occupant to descend these stairs also increases the time of exposure to smoke. Lack of proper ventilation in egress system is responsible for increasing life threats in these high-rise buildings. Therefore, it is necessary to provide proper evacuation system in building (Soja & Wade, 2000)
• Fire Department Access: Even the modern firefighting techniques are quite improved but still most of the fire departments have equipment that can only reach to the 6th or 7h floor of the building. Because of the height the ladders cannot reach the top stories and the fire fighters have to vertically enter the building and also have to face the evacuating crowd. This can result in delay and even more crowding before they reach to the fire point. Also they have to bring water hoses with them which are also a challenge in these high apartments. Therefore proper designing of the building is necessary for effective safety management in case of an emergency (Soja & Wade, 2000).
• The Forces of Nature: The impact of nature also have an effect in increasing the danger of fire in high-rise buildings. In tall buildings the stack affect and the wind pressure increases. Both these factors are responsible for greater smoke movement and high flammability (MiaZmud, 2007). Therefore nature also contributes in increasing the fire danger in high buildings.
• Increased Density of Occupant and Fuel Load: As the number of stories increase in a building the density of materials and the population of residents also increase. Even if the fire barriers are placed horizontally the fire will move n upward direction. This will in return result in adding more fuel and effecting large number of occupants in the building
• Complex Vertical Utility Services: Usually the utility services in a building are arranged vertically and in case of tall buildings there are long pipes of water and gas supplies running from one floor to another. These arrangements could cause problems as in case of fire the damage in lower part could affect all the above stories because they are interrelated (Clampet, 1997)
• Integrated Fire Problems: Now a day these high rise buildings are not just only residential buildings. They are either situated on a shopping mall or other commercial residences. These occupancies will have their own fire protection system or problems which may be differ from the residential apartments. These could cause serious problems in case of fire. Therefore special engineering solutions will be required to solve this issue in these high-rise buildings (Anon., 2001)

For an architect or designer all the above mentioned features should be well understood and addressed so that the building they will make will be fire-safe. Today there exist codes that provide guides for the building designers to solve these problems. It is important for the engineers to understand these issues before designing a high rise building and come up with sustainable and unique solutions for them. These are all the requirements needed for fire safety engineering (Demkin, 2003)

Developing and Revising Fire Safety Strategies in High- Rise Buildings

Fire Safety in High-Rise Buildings

The increased incidents of fire in high rise buildings forced the concrete and masonary industry to recognize and address this issue so that fire safety can be increased and property loss can be decreased (Anon., 2015). Keeping in mind the need of such policy the Fire Safety Committee and Masonary Industry recommends some basic principles and guidelines for architects and designers. These principles guides on choosing an appropriate design and construction material for the building so that the individuals as well as property is safe from fire (Meacham, B.J., 2004). These principles are discussed below:

1. Building must remain intact throughout the fire and allows occupants to evacuate from the building.

The most important thing to consider while designing and development of a high-rise building is that in case of fire there must be no structural failure and the building should not be collapsed during the fire. This is because if the building collapsed it will not only endanger the lives of occupants and the fire rescuers but also can bring hazard to the people and buildings around (Tan, C. W, 2004). The floors and structural material should be tested according to the fire rating codes to determine their performance in fire. Their performance are tested in laboratories so there is always a doubt that how they will perform in actual devastating situation. Usually structural materials which have two hours or more fire rating are considered useful in varied fire situations.. These codes help to develop criteria for performance and design for maximum safety of high-rise buildings (Soja & Wade, 2000).

2. Code regulations for high-rise buildings should be strictly directed towards fire safety and should be implemented properly.

Modern studies have claimed that the hazardous incidents in modern high buildings are a result of inappropriate use of construction material and building design that does not feature characteristics of stability in fire situations. These include use of low quality and combustible materials and unsafe building design such as inconvenient access to exit, poor elevator controls and poor exhausting system in corridors or stairs. These factors can contribute to stack effects and can cause difficulties to both occupants and as well as for fire fighters. These problems can only be controlled by strict implementation of building codes that are based on safety measures and consideration. it is also important that theses codes should not be meant for reducing some risks and creating new ones.

3. There should be compartmentation, early fire detection and smoke control facilities on every story of high-rise building.

Each story of the building should consist of compartmentation that enclose the floor, stairwell and elevator. It is suggested that each story should have two compartmentations so that the evacuation or rescue procedures can be done efficiently in case of fire. These compartments are made safe through fire restricted barriers which are also responsible for smoke control. The openings should be equipped with self-closing doors and dampers etc. Smoke control devices should be installed in corridors and stairs to avoid suffocation. All these precautions are necessary to warn the occupants in advance and ensure their safety from fire hazard.

4. Implementing restrictions on using combustible constructing elements and controlled use of insulation and finishes

 The old constructed high buildings which were build according to old codes were safer than the modern building. The primary reason behind this is that modern construction involves the massive use of combustible material which results in greater flame and smoke in result of accidental fire (Walke, 2008).However this danger can be minimized by applying strict legal control over material use for construction including secondary building material such as insulations and finishes. A practical criteria should be adopted in controlling damage occur through fire and life threat from smoke and combustion. Government should take steps on national level to ensure occupants safety in these high-rise buildings (Tylor.Wood, 2011)

5. Fire suppressing systems (sprinkles) are necessary for hazardous areas or areas with high combustible material.

Modern building codes made these automatic fire suppressing system compulsory for high rise buildings. These fire safety equipment are in addition to other necessary fire safety measures and should be included in basic building design. These systems should be included to provide instant safety from any fire incident. However these sprinkles cannot be relied totally as fire extinguishers because they may not be work in heavy fire situation. These sprinkle system can also helpful in alerting people ahead before the fire raises to hazardous level (Lougheed, 1997).

6. In addition to compartmentation every story should have an automatic active fire-suppressing / protection systems

It was recommended that in stories where non compartment areas exist automatic fire suppressing systems should be implanted. However they should not be considered as permanent substitution of structural fire resistance or compartmentation. Compartmentation is necessary for reliable security of occupants in these high-rise buildings (Bunker & R, 2002).

Primary Parameters and Codes of Practices

Different types of rules and regulations have been developed and regulated for protecting buildings from fire and smoke. These rules and approved codes of practices / regulations define procedures that help / facilitate the architects and building designers to build structures such as high risk buildings in a much protected way so that they could be safe from any disasters situation or even can avoid them from happening. The common codes or regulations practiced in world are:

• Approved Document-B: Fire Safety (B-1); Building Regulations (England and Wales)
• Fire safety/precautions in the design, structure and use of buildings: BS 5588
• The British Standard BS 5588 series of practices and codes
• Life Safety codes NFPA 101 (US)

Initially the NFPA codes were used by the architects all over the world but today they have choice of using either NFPA codes or Local codes (B1). In designing high rise buildings the following fire factors and behaviors are considered to successfully implement the fire protection system. These involve:

The Risk:  the risk of the fire can be estimated by taking in account the amount and kinds of combustible materials used in the construction of building and furnishing it. It also involves the occupant’s characteristics such as body heat and energy. The energy and mass loss is also involved in these risk estimation calculations (ASCE, 1999). The energy release rate elations can be given as              

The Growth Rate of Fire: The fire growth rate is determined by the maximum time it takes the occupants to reach to a safe exit. After this, the time required for reaching to defined safe zone must be greater than the time which is estimated for the fire to reaching the evacuation zone.

Time of Activation: this estimation involves the time required n pre activation process that is the time of detecting fire by the security system and the time involved in the starting of these emergency procedures.

Layout Design: The building design or layout esures that all the above mentioned factors are covered while designing the high rise building. What kind of protection and evacuation system will be used in a building will be cleared at this stage.

Modeling of Fire Protection System: Fire resistance which is the ability of a building to withstand fire can play a major role in enhancing fire protection in high rise buildings. These buildings are given different fire ratings or codes depending upon their resistance. These codes and ratings are given on the base of building design and the covered area.  These building are also physically tested however the actual resistance to fire situation is always unpredictable. The severity of resistance can be determined by man other factors which are not defined in building codes. The commonly used evacuation procedures in high rise structures include the single stage evacuation on fire alarm and/or the two staged evacuation process involving quick investigation in which a warning code is sent to employees and after confirmation the fire alarm and sprinkles are activated.

Analysis necessary for numeric modelling: The following fire resistance analysis should be conducted:

• The fire development model which helps to illustrate the fire or heat exposure.
• The thermal response model that demonstrate temperature rise in structural members.
• Structural response model that will illustrate the capacity of exposed structure in carrying load.

The escape designs hold significant importance and their objectives are categorized by keeping in view the building requirements and other concerned rules and regulations. Moreover it is ascertained that the building must be designed and constructed by keeping appropriate provision for the warning signs of fire. Apart from all this a safe path must be constructed which routes towards an outside building and provides an escape path in case of fire from the building. The employees must be trained properly for following all these procedures without any outside assistance even in the case of emergency or disaster.

Summary:

For the cases of high rise bundling, much emphasis is also given on the means of evacuation in terms of the capacity of stairways (designed from equations/modeling), implication of phased evacuation approach (such as for wo floors evacuation to avoid panic, e.g. as per LDSA Fire Safety guide), exit widths, exit flows, travel distances and times, along with the consideration of the type of occupants residing the multistory high rise buildings. Details of the parameters and calculation models have not been included in this interim report (due to limitations of time/length), however one complete case study of how to actually design active protection and safety system for a high rise building will be included in the final submission of this paper.

Chapter 3. Methodology     

The Methodology chapter of this research study will include different techniques and strategies employed by the researcher to collect primary secondary as well as secondary data to fill to the research gaps.

From the literature reviewed in this research, it has been observed that there is extensive literature available on active fire protection systems as well on how to protect the high rise building though codes of practices and optimized/efficient designing techniques. This literature includes various parameters such as causes of fire, energy analyses, spread of fire, evacuation and mitigation measures. However, not many research studies discuss the parameters which must be considered from the point of view of high rise building residents. Therefore, this research has been planned to be categorized in two distinct methodologies;

1. Secondary Research: where data available from previously completed research will be thoroughly analyzed and critical learning from this will be presented
2. Primary Research: where data from the users of the high rise buildings as well as from the architects, designers, practitioners etc. will be collected

Keeping in mind the nature of the study which is descriptive a survey method approach is selected for the study. The main focus of the study is to examine the safety concerns of residents in high-rise buildings and how they have to tackle any emergency situation especially fire incidents (MiaZmud, 2007).

The main goal of the primary research will be:

• Assessing the general understanding of fire safety in high rise buildings and procedures of emergency evacuations.
• Exploring current perception and attitudes towards building design in relation with fire safety and emergency evacuation procedures.
• Assessing and evaluating the fire safety strategies and their relation with occupant’s response and building design.

Based on the research aims and objectives the following research questions will be answered through this research:

• What are the factors responsible of fire risks and safety issues to occupants living in high-rise buildings?
• What are the strategies and attitudes of building designer towards safety management in high-rise buildings to meet the needs of emergency evacuation service?
• What can be done to enhance the fire safety of high rise structures? How to you find the evacuation training processes and the fire safety systems of your building?

This research will provide detailed answers to these questions along with more questions that will be fabricated in a form of questionnaire after careful evaluation of the related literature

Research Sample

The details of the secondary data has already been presented in the previous sections

The first step in sampling for the collection of primary data will involve identifying the universe for the study which will be high rise buildings, their residents and building designers. The building will be selected through random sampling method which then provide the base for sample frame for the participants that will be ultimately selected for the survey. The sampling criteria will involve participants from buildings which are above 5-10+ stories in height. In the simple frame the buildings which are 5 stories or above will be considered “high” and buildings with less than 5 stories will be considered “short”. Eligible buildings will be verified through legal documents or online sources. The age of the building will also be reviewed. Once the buildings for the survey will be shortlisted the participants will then selected through random sampling method from these buildings. In addition data will also be collected from architects and building designers to get information on latest trend in high-rise building safety and evacuation procedures.

Tools for Data Collection

The tools used for this research will be self-administered questionnaires and interviews. Structured questionnaires will be used to gather data from the residents of high-rise buildings and interviews will be conducted from the architects and designers. A demographic form will also be filled by the participants which will include the basic demographic information such as name, age, gender, occupation etc.

Research Limitations

The research will be conducted on the residents who live in buildings above than 5 stories. In addition the residents should be permanently living/working in these buildings for over 2 years. The architects and designers for the study will be those who have a legal license and have experience more than 5 years.

 At this point of time, the researcher believes that he will be able to collect sufficient secondary data to achieve the objectives of this study. Therefore, the use of primary data sources may not be mandatory.

Chapter 4. Findings and Analysis

This chapter of the paper will present the analysis and major findings of this research study. In the analysis portion the primary as well as secondary data/content will be analyzed thoroughly using critical analyses and Excel/SPSS/similar tools, and by applying various testing and statistical procedures like comparing mean and test scores and significance analysis. The accurate results will be presented with the margin of error which will be varied according to survey and analysis level. The analysis will focus the main variables of the study that are “High-Rise Buildings”, “Occupants Safety” and “Fire Risk”.

The findings section will present the results of the analysis which will be based on the objectives of the study. They will include that the underlying causes of fire risk in high rise buildings and the developed practices of building designers and occupants towards safety management and emergency evacuation procedures etc. It should be noted that results of this study are expected to be consistent with other similar studies performed in the past. However, some differences might be observed due to differences in research design and data sources. The aim will be to present the results that relate to the aims and objectives of this paper.

Chapter 5. Discussions and Conclusions

The findings and analysis chapter will be followed by the Discussions and Conclusions section, where the researcher will present their own views, opinions and arguments in light of the research questions and research findings. The researcher will support the findings through the use of authentic reference resources and studies. There might be a chance that some findings will not match the study’s objectives however they will also be justified through research and references The Discussions and Conclusions chapter will clearly outline the methods to improve the safety of high rise buildings whilst identifying shortcomings of safety features and safety planning. This chapter will also include some suggestion from the researcher to help the occupants of high-rise buildings as well as the designers to ensure better and quick safety in case of any emergency or fire situation.

Chapter 6. Expected Timeline

The expected timeline for this research has been outlined as per below. Initially, the project introduction draft along with literature review will be drafted. After careful analyses of the literature, a methodology section will be finalized, which will establish the method of investigation to be conducted. This will include drafting of the questionnaire for the collection of the data, reaching out for the participants, and conducting interviews. After the primary as well as secondary data has been collected, the data will be processed to obtain the findings of this research. These findings along with the literature reviewed will then be used to present the conclusion and the lessons learned during this research. Finally the completed paper will be edited to produce the final paper

References

A list of references resources used to collect data and support arguments will be presented under this chapter.

1. Abdullah, Jelani, (2001), “Fire in Tall Buildings: Occupant’s Safety and Owner’s Liability”, Kuala Lumpur: International Law Book Services.
2. Anon., 2001. 9-11 Research. [Online]

Available at: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

[Accessed 30 12 2015].

3. Anon., 2015. WBDG. [Online]

Available at: https://www.wbdg.org/design/fire_protection.php

[Accessed 30 December 2015].

4. Baker, W. E., (1973), “Explosions in Air”, Austin: University of Texas Press.
5. Bunker, M. & R, E., 2002. Huh ? What Did They Say. National Fire Protection Association, 96(1).
6. Clampet, J., 1997. High Rise Fire Protection: A Tall Order. [Online]

Available at: http://femalifesafety.org/docs/2829-HighRise.pdf

[Accessed 30 12 2015].

7. Craighaed, G., (2003), High-Rise Security and Fire Life Safety – 2nd Edition, Elsevier Science, MA.
8. Chandrakantan, S., (2004), Human factors influencing fire safety measures, Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 13 N. 2, pp. 110-116.
9. Demkin, J. A., 2003. Wiley. [Online]

Available at: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-047127156X.html

[Accessed 30 December 2015].

10. Douglas, J., (2002), Building Adaptation, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
11. Furness, A., and Muckett, M., (2007), Introduction to Fire Safety Management, Butterworth Heinemann.
12. Gupta, A.K., Yadav, P.K., (2004), SAFE-R: a model to study the evacuation profile of a building, Fire Safety Journal, 39 pp. 539-556.
13. Hall, J. R., 2001. High Rise Building Fire. Quincy: National Fire Protection Association.
14. HMG (HM Government), (2006), Fire Safety Risk Assessment: Residential care premises, Crown Copyright, HMSO.
15. John R. Hall, J., 2013. HIGH-RISE BUILDING FIRES, s.l.: National Fire Protection Association Fire Analysis and Research Division.
16. Lougheed, G., 1997. Expected Size of Sprinklered Fires in Sprinklered Office Buildings, ASHRAE Transactions. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Atlanta, 103(1).
17. Meacham, B.J., (2004), Building codes and fire safety design in the post September 11, 2001 environment: How have things changed, Proceedings 5th International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, 2004, Luxembourg, (Society of Fire Protection Engineers) SFPE.
18. MiaZmud, 2007. Public Preception of High Rise Building Safety and Emergency Evacuation Procedures , Quincy: The Fire Protection Research Foundation.
19. National Research Council, (NRC), (2003), Making the Nation Safe from Fire, a Path Forward in Research, the National Academies Press, Washington, US.
20. Park, J., Jung, W., (2003), The requisite characteristics for diagnosis procedures based on the empirical findings of the operators’ behavior under emergency situations. Reliability Eng System Safety 2003 vol.81, pp 197–213.
21. Soja, E. & Wade, C., 2000. Fire Protection in High Rise Buildings, Melboroune: Building Control Commission.
22. Tarada, F., (2005), Time For A Sharp Exit, Building Services Journal, 10/05, Pg 40 – 49, CIBSE, London.
23. Tan, C. W. And Hirw, B. K., (2004), “Effective Management of Fire Safety in a High Rise Buildings”, Buletin Ingenieur vol. 204, 12-19.
24. Tylor.Wood, 2011. Classification of Building Materials, North Carolina: NCDOI OSFM Evaluation Services.
25. Walke, R. N., 2008. Noncombustible Building Materials. The Fire and Security Authority, Issue 3, pp. 4-12.