Emergency Egress Strategies for Buildings.
Emergency Egress Strategies for Buildings.
(43 K)
Bukowski, R. W.
Interflam 2007. (Interflam '07). International
Interflam Conference, 11th Proceedings. September 3-5,
2007, London, England, 159-168 pp, 2007.
Keywords:
egress; evacuation; stairways; occupants; human
behavior; elevators (lifts); refuge; communication
networks; management systems; handicapped; high rise
buildings; design applications; human response; human
performance; stairwells
Abstract:
The primary strategy for the safety of building
occupants in emergencies (especially fires) is by
facilitating their relocation to a safe place. In other
than a few institutional occupancies (health care and
detentional) this generally involves the use of stairs
as part of a protected means of egress (MOE) for
vertical evacuation. For tall buildings with large
populations, providing sufficient stair capacity for
simultaneous egress has been considered practical by
code making organizations, so the strategy of phased
evacuation has been employed. To this point in time,
little attention has been paid to the special needs of
people with disabilities and other (permanent or
temporary) physical limitations in moving on stairs. The
aftermath of September 11,2001 new attention is being
paid to many issues, especially emergency egress from
tall buildings. A number of experts have called for a
fundamental linking of egress strategies including all
of the possible components that might be employed. In
September 2006 a workshop was organized in Atlanta by
CIB Wl4:Fire and T50:Tall Buildings, with one of the
discussion topics devoted to this issue. This paper is
ended to continue that discussion.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899