Evacuation models and fire codes are written under the assumption that when the fire alarm sounds occupants will immediately exit the structure. But work done by researchers has shown that this is not the case. In fact, there is a behavioral process that transpires repeats before an occupant taking action to exit the structure or stay in place. This process involves four steps that discover, identify, decide, and act upon the cues or the perception of the cues present. Many valuable lessons have been learned through research done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from the events that occurred at the World Trade Center and the Station nightclub fire. Studying
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The vital calculation used is evacuation time; which is how long it takes an occupant to evacuate a structure. The evacuation time calculation assumes the occupant will immediately begin to exit and does not consider other human behaviors that would delay evacuation and safety. For example, people often delay evacuation to fight the fire, gather valuables, or attempt to rescue others in the building (Kuligowski, 2008). Case studies of tragedy fires demonstrate that these standardized calculations have underestimated the necessary evacuation times resulting in buildings that have erroneous safety designs which are due to faulty assumptions and the lack of acknowledgment of fire-related human …show more content…
“Measuring human response in a fire is difficult enough when the preexisting conditions are known, but predicting human decisions related to the pre-fire conditions is an even more difficult activity” (Brannigan & Smidts, 1998, p. 412). People are curious creatures that will problem solve a situation rather than autonomously respond to a single cue. Anyone that has been in a building when the fire alarm sounds have witnessed and perhaps also delayed their evacuation until more information is gathered. According to Kuligowski, research has shown that before individuals take action, they gather cues, interpret the situation and associated risk on those cues, and then make a decision about what action they will take based on the information collected, and then act upon that decision (Kuligowski, 2009). Instead of immediately exiting a structure, people will often ignore a single alarm and wait for additional information such as the smell of smoke or witness other people evacuating which can be a deadly
The vital calculation used is evacuation time; which is how long it takes an occupant to evacuate a structure. The evacuation time calculation assumes the occupant will immediately begin to exit and does not consider other human behaviors that would delay evacuation and safety. For example, people often delay evacuation to fight the fire, gather valuables, or attempt to rescue others in the building (Kuligowski, 2008). Case studies of tragedy fires demonstrate that these standardized calculations have underestimated the necessary evacuation times resulting in buildings that have erroneous safety designs which are due to faulty assumptions and the lack of acknowledgment of fire-related human …show more content…
“Measuring human response in a fire is difficult enough when the preexisting conditions are known, but predicting human decisions related to the pre-fire conditions is an even more difficult activity” (Brannigan & Smidts, 1998, p. 412). People are curious creatures that will problem solve a situation rather than autonomously respond to a single cue. Anyone that has been in a building when the fire alarm sounds have witnessed and perhaps also delayed their evacuation until more information is gathered. According to Kuligowski, research has shown that before individuals take action, they gather cues, interpret the situation and associated risk on those cues, and then make a decision about what action they will take based on the information collected, and then act upon that decision (Kuligowski, 2009). Instead of immediately exiting a structure, people will often ignore a single alarm and wait for additional information such as the smell of smoke or witness other people evacuating which can be a deadly