Evolution of HAZARD, the Fire Hazard Assessment Methodology.
Evolution of HAZARD, the Fire Hazard Assessment
Methodology.
(51 K)
Jones, W. W.
Fire Risk and Hazard Assessment Symposium: Research and
Practice: Bridging the Gap. Proceedings. National
Fire Protection Research Foundation. June 26-28, 1996,
San Francisco, CA, 392-406 pp, 1996.
Fire Technology, Vol. 33, No. 2, 167-182, May/June
1997.
Keywords:
fire risk; hazard assessment; methodology; computer
programs; fire models; egress
Abstract:
The United States alone spends over $700B per year on
new and renovated construction. About 20% of this is to
assure safety from unwanted fires, which includes the
cost of insurance, to make families whole after fires,
to recover from business loss and so forth. This is an
enormous cost to endure every year. Combined with a
growing construction market in other countries, this
presents a major opportunity for the introduction of new
fire safe products to the building and transportation
industries and new products such as advanced detectors
and suppression systems and fire fighting equipment for
the fire protection industry. These industries need
measures of performance for their products and
mechanisms to show that these products can be safely and
quickly introduced. Performance based fire standards
are currently under development to augment prescriptive
standards around the world. The intent of performance
based standards is to provide flexibility in maintaining
accepted fire safety from unwanted fires with new
competitive products while providing an opportunity for
saving lives, reducing property loss, at the same time
buying a reduction in the cost of design, construction,
maintenance and liability coverage. In order to derive
this benefit it is necessary to have tools to evaluate
building systems performance which then provide a metric
for the effectiveness of design and material use.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899