SFPE Guide to Human Behavior in Fire

SFPE Guide to Human Behavior in Fire
Author: Society of Fire Protection Engineers
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2018-11-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319946978

This single resource for the fire safety community distills the most relevant and useful science and research into a consensus-based guide whose key factors and considerations impact the response and behavior of occupants of a building during a fire event. The Second Edition of SFPE's Engineering Guide: Human Behavior in Fire provides a common introduction to this field for the broad fire safety community: fire protection engineers/fire safety engineers, human behavior scientists/researchers, design professionals, and code authorities. The public benefits from consistent understanding of the factors that influence the responses and behaviors of people when threatened by fire and the application of reliable methodologies to evaluate and estimate human response in buildings and structures. This Guide also aims to lessen the uncertainties in the "people components" of fire safety and allow for more refined analysis with less reliance on arbitrary safety factors. As with fire science in general, our knowledge of human behavior in fire is growing, but is still characterized by uncertainties that are traceable to both limitation in the science and unfamiliarity by the user communities. The concepts for development of evacuation scenarios for performance-based designs and the technical methods to estimate evacuation response are reviewed with consideration to the limitation and uncertainty of the methods. This Guide identifies both quantitative and qualitative information that constitutes important consideration prior to developing safety factors, exercising engineering judgment, and using evacuation models in the practical design of buildings and evacuation procedures. Besides updating material in the First Edition, this revision includes new information on: Incapacitating Effects of Fire Effluent & Toxicity Analysis Methods Occupant Behavior Scnearios Movement Models and Behavioral Models Egress Model Selection, Verification, and Validation Estimation of Uncertainty and Use of Safety Factors Enhancing Human Response to Emergencies & Notification of Messaging The prediction of human behavior during a fire emergency is one of the most challenging areas of fire protection engineering. Yet, understanding and considering human factors is essential to designing effective evacuation systems, ensuring safety during a fire and related emergency events, and accurately reconstructing a fire.

Fires and Human Behaviour

Fires and Human Behaviour
Author: David Canter
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2024-06-03
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1040052363

This second edition of Fires and Human Behaviour was originally published in 1990 and since the first edition in 1980 there continued to be considerable loss of life in small and large fires throughout the world. The most significant of these from a behavioural point of view was the Kings Cross underground station in 1988. This was a relatively small fire caused by inappropriate human actions. What appeared to remain timeless and of value ten years after the first edition was published were the details of what actually happens in fires and the psychological models that emerged from studying those details. This second edition was therefore edited to keep the original detailed case studies and to add information about some major incidents that had occurred since 1980.

The Benefits of Behavioral Research to the Fire Service

The Benefits of Behavioral Research to the Fire Service
Author: Peter W. Blaich
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2008-02-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780595606436

Previously, Fire Safety Engineers worked under a simple assumption that when a fire alarm activated, people will evacuation immediately. It was believed that how quickly people managed to evacuate a building depended mainly on physical abilities as well as the location of the nearest exit and the behavior of the fire. But work by Behavioral Scientists has found that this idea falls considerably short. Research now shows that as much as two thirds of the time it takes occupants to exit a building after the fire alarm sounds is startup time or time spent milling about and looking for more information. Ultimately, such a finding has big implications for architects, engineers and fire protection specialists hoping to design safer buildings. Subsequently, after the 9/11 terrorists attack this new way of thinking based on Human Behavior in Fire and Emergencies is getting more attention and funding. Studying how occupants react as events unfolded and finding out what helped or hindered the evacuation efforts during the 9/11 attacks has provided invaluable information for future building designs. Ultimately, it is the author of this book believes that this is going to impact structured emergency preparedness in a major way. The basic premise of this book is that design should be human-centered because it humancentered design that provides for the information that people need to adapt to the chaotic and uncertain way that fire develops.

Wildland Fire Behaviour

Wildland Fire Behaviour
Author: Mark A. Finney
Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
Total Pages: 675
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1486309100

Wildland fires have an irreplaceable role in sustaining many of our forests, shrublands and grasslands. They can be used as controlled burns or occur as free-burning wildfires, and can sometimes be dangerous and destructive to fauna, human communities and natural resources. Through scientific understanding of their behaviour, we can develop the tools to reliably use and manage fires across landscapes in ways that are compatible with the constraints of modern society while benefiting the ecosystems. The science of wildland fire is incomplete, however. Even the simplest fire behaviours – how fast they spread, how long they burn and how large they get – arise from a dynamical system of physical processes interacting in unexplored ways with heterogeneous biological, ecological and meteorological factors across many scales of time and space. The physics of heat transfer, combustion and ignition, for example, operate in all fires at millimetre and millisecond scales but wildfires can become conflagrations that burn for months and exceed millions of hectares. Wildland Fire Behaviour: Dynamics, Principles and Processes examines what is known and unknown about wildfire behaviours. The authors introduce fire as a dynamical system along with traditional steady-state concepts. They then break down the system into its primary physical components, describe how they depend upon environmental factors, and explore system dynamics by constructing and exercising a nonlinear model. The limits of modelling and knowledge are discussed throughout but emphasised by review of large fire behaviours. Advancing knowledge of fire behaviours will require a multidisciplinary approach and rely on quality measurements from experimental research, as covered in the final chapters.

Human Behavior in Fire Emergencies

Human Behavior in Fire Emergencies
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2003
Genre: Buildings
ISBN:

This is a compilation of material of the latest specialized information on human behavior in fire emergencies.

New Perspectives on Arson and Firesetting

New Perspectives on Arson and Firesetting
Author: Faye K Horsley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000452921

New Perspectives on Arson and Firesetting: The Human-Fire Relationship is the first forensic text to move away from a sole focus on anti-social firesetting. The author presents a broader investigation of the role of fire in human life with a view to informing research and practice. This book examines the evolutionary, psychological and social significance of fire. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature and original research data, it challenges the existing understanding of arson and firesetting. A new concept – fire use – is introduced, which is conceptualised as sitting on a continuum from non-criminalised to criminalised behavior. The author combines her experience as a practitioner forensic psychologist with her own research to consider the practical application of an alternative perspective. This includes a particular focus on the assessment and treatment of fire setters and a call for a socially informed approach to prevention. The forensic scope, applied focus, and emphasis on the importance of interdisciplinary research and practice makes New Perspectives on Arson and Firesetting essential reading for students in fields such as anthropology, sociology, criminology, and psychology, as well as interdisciplinary scholars, forensic practitioners, and allied professionals. The author is donating her royalties in full to Pancreatic Cancer UK.