Low rise residential building fire risk and imperative issues in Taiwan- formal and informal settlements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Chien Chen ◽  
Jyun Jia Wu ◽  
Hong Min Wan ◽  
Chia Lung Wu
Keyword(s):  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Building Fire

scholarly journals An Integrated Method for Fire Risk Assessment in Residential Buildings

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hongfu Mi ◽  
Yaling Liu ◽  
Wenhe Wang ◽  
Guoqing Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Risk Level ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Building Fires ◽  
Building Fire ◽  
Fire Risk Assessment

Building fires are characterized by high uncertainty, so their fire risk assessment is a very challenging task. Many indexes and parameters related to building fires are ambiguous and uncertain; as a result, a flexible and robust method is needed to process quantitative or qualitative data and update existing information when new data are available. This paper presents a novel model to deal with the uncertainty of the residential building fire risk and systematically optimize its performance effectiveness. The model includes fuzzy theory, evidence reasoning theory, and expected utility methods. Fuzzy analysis hierarchy process is applied to analyze the residential building fire risk index system and determine the weights of the risk indexes, while the evidence reasoning operator is used to synthesize them. Three buildings were selected as a case study to illustrate the proposed fire risk model. The results show that the fire risk level of three buildings corresponds to “moderate” or below which is consistent with the previous study. These results also truly reflect the actual situation of fire safety in these residential buildings. The application of this model provides a powerful mathematical framework for cooperative modeling of the fire risk assessment system and allows data to be analyzed step by step in a systematic manner. It is expected that the proposed model could provide managers and researchers with flexible and transparent tools to effectively reduce the fire risk in the system.

scholarly journals Determination of Critical Separation Distance Between Dwellings in Informal Settlements Fire

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Wang ◽  
Lesley Gibson ◽  
Mohamed Beshir ◽  
David Rush
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Spread ◽  
Separation Distance ◽  
Flame Length ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Fire Disaster ◽  
Critical Separation

AbstractApproximately one billion people across the globe are living in informal settlements with a large potential fire risk. Due to the high dwelling density, a single informal settlement dwelling fire may result in a very serious fire disaster leaving thousands of people homeless. In this work, a simple physics-based theoretical model was employed to assess the critical fire separation distance between dwellings. The heat flux and ejected flame length were obtained from a full-scale dwelling tests with ISO 9705 dimension (3.6 m × 2.4 m × 2.4 m) to estimate the radiation decay coefficient of the radiation heat flux away from the open door. The ignition potential of combustible materials in adjacent dwellings are analyzed based on the critical heat flux from cone calorimeter tests. To verify the critical distance in real informal settlement fire, a parallel method using aerial photography within geographic information systems (GIS), was employed to determine the critical separation distances in four real informal settlement fires of 2014–2015 in Masiphumelele, Cape Town, South Africa. The fire-spread distances were obtained as well through the real fires. The probabilistic analysis was conducted by Weibull distribution and logistic regression, and the corresponding separation distances were given with different fire spread probabilities. From the experiments with the assumption of no interventions and open doors and windows, it was established that the heat flux would decay from around 36 kW/m2 within a distance of 1.0 m to a value smaller than 5 kW/m2 at a distance of 4.0 m. Both experiments and GIS results agree well and suggest the ignition probabilities at distances of 1.0 m, 2.0 m and 3.0 m are 97%, 52% and 5% respectively. While wind is not explicitly considered in the work, it is implicit within the GIS analyses of fire spread risk, therefore, it is reasonable to say that there is a relatively low fire spread risk at distances greater than 3 m. The distance of 1.0 m in GIS is verified to well and conservatively predict the fire spread risk in the informal settlements.

scholarly journals Evaluation of the Legal Framework for Building Fire Safety Regulations in Spain

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Amaya Osácar ◽  
Juan Bautista Echeverria Trueba ◽  
Brian Meacham
Keyword(s):  
Fire Safety ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Building Fire ◽  
Safety Regulations ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Ideal

There is a trend in Europe towards increasing the quality and performance of regulations. At the same time, regulatory failure has been observed in the area of building fire safety regulation in England and elsewhere. As a result, an analysis of the appropriateness of fire safety regulations in Spain is warranted, with the objective being to assess whether a suitable level of fire safety is currently being delivered. Three basic elements must be considered in such analysis: the legal and regulatory framework, the level of fire risk/safety of buildings that is expected and the level which actually results, and a suitable method of analysis. The focus of this paper is creating a legal and regulatory framework, in particular with respect to fire safety in buildings. Components of an ”ideal” building regulatory framework to adequately control fire risk are presented, the existing building regulatory framework is summarized, and an analysis of the gaps between the ideal and the existing systems is presented. It is concluded that the gaps between the ideal and the existing framework are significant, and that the current fire safety regulations are not appropriate for assuring delivery of the intended level of fire risk mitigation.

scholarly journals Fire Risk Analysis of a 6-storey Residential Building Using CUrisk

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 609-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Li ◽  
Xia Zhang ◽  
George Hadjisophocleous
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Risk Analysis

scholarly journals A Numerical Analysis for Fire Spread Mechanism of Residential Building Fire

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chan-Sol Ahn ◽  
Heung-Youl Kim ◽  
Yong-Ho You ◽  
Hyung-Jun Kim
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Analysis ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Fire Spread ◽  
Building Fire

Building Fire Risk Analysis

2016 ◽  
pp. 2941-2991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Meacham ◽  
David Charters ◽  
Peter Johnson ◽  
Matthew Salisbury
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Building Fire ◽  
Fire Risk Analysis
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