Human Behaviour in Fire - Coursework Example

HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN FIRE The designs of buildings today are such that the principle of performance is based on fire safety; basically the time available for occupants to evacuate the building should be greater than the time required. The time required for the occupants to evacuate and escape is known as the required Safe escape time (RSET) (Daniel Nilsson, Anders Johansson, 2009) Daniel Wilson and Anders Johansson have conducted an evacuation experiment in a cinema theatre to analyze people’s behavior and reaction. This analysis was conducted to focus and investigate if individual people’s behavior influenced the others during the pre movement stage of fire evacuation. Experiments have been performed in various types of buildings such as shopping malls, cinema theaters, and buildings to develop recommended pre-movement for different buildings and alarms. During these unexpected scenarios, people usually are influenced by others and it is likely that they follow others this type of influence is called as social influence and this can have a negative and a positive effect on RSET. The pre movement time will be calculated based on the type of building or alarm and not based on social influence. The participant’s behavior were studied and analyzed to see if social influence is an important factor. The analyses showed that during the initial part of evacuation, people are influenced by others behavior. There was one type of behavior that correlates social influence is through observation. During evacuation, a person can get more information by looking at others and this is termed as ‘Informational Social Influence’. There is another influence which is called ‘normative social influence’ where the person avoids breaking norms by observing others actions. People seated in the front row will usually display and influence the crowd to a great extent than those sitting in the back rows. Through this experiment, it was revealed that the participants looked behind and beside when the alarm and spoken message was used. This clearly states that people are influenced during the initial stages of evacuation. The analysis also revealed that the participants looked at both the sides when the alarm and spoken messages were used which suggests social influence was stronger in both the cases. The result also suggested that the people are more influenced by their neighbor than by others which mean that the social influence increases with the decreasing distance. Social bonds are also a very important factor that influences social influencing. People who evacuate mostly follow their friends and families. The experiments concluded that the people are influenced greatly by other people around them especially their family members or friends during the initial phase of evacuation. The social influence is important when the information is very limited during emergency alarms. (Daniel Nilsson, Anders Johansson 2009) Daniel Nielson, Maria Johansson & Hakan Frantzich had conducted another evacuation experiment in a road tunnel to study the human behavior of motorists and also access their emotional behavior during fire emergencies. The participants were shown the route to a tunnel and they were instructed to follow the path, approximately after 1 km in the tunnel, the participants encountered with the accident. The results showed clearly that there was a swift response from all the participants as they were aware. Increased alertness and observation are the key factors that would lead to having shorter response time. The results also showed that the evacuation message was unclear but the participants suggested acoustic signal would alert the motorists. The result also revealed that the social influence was also important during tunnel evacuation as the people are usually influenced by others next to them. (Daniel Nilsson, Maria Johansson, Hakan Frantzich 2009) With increase in population and development in China, the need for better safe laws and regulation is very necessary. China is a densely populated country and closed environments such as underground channels with limited ventilation, evacuation are extremely difficult for fire evacuation. Therefore, china has very strict safe laws and regulations and the safety evacuation are normally carried out in most of the metros (Zhong & Fan, 2003; Zhong, Liu, Geng et al, 2006) The designs for any underground project are followed and approved by CFDOM (Code for Design of Metro) Most cities in China has carried out a similar experiment on human safety evacuation during planning, constructing, designing and operations. The safety evacuation is a very important and an critical aspect during the examination index in China(Maohua Zhong, Congling Shi, Xuwei Tu, Tairan Fu, Li He, 2007) The most critical aspect of any building is the safety of people in the occurrence of fire. During the initial stages of fire, people have to rely on themselves or be rescued by others and hence the human behavior during this critical time is an essential part for survival. The behavior portrayed during a fire escape is termed as ‘evacuation behavior’. Fire safety such as fire prevention equipment, reducing the spread of fire and smoke, extinguishing the fire and a quick escape route. The research and study on fire evacuation began in the 20th century when the focus was on movement of people through exit doorways and in the 21st century the focus and interpretation changed from technological to behavioral aspect of the people during such fire incidents. For example bringing together building fire safety both architecture and technological and human behavior such as psychology and facility management. Occupancy Risk Criteria (ORSET) is another important tool to measure the safety of the people and this includes visual access, design, means of escape and pre-movement index. The time required for movement is calculated as Movement velocity and during the investigation conducted by Pauls and Fruin the walking behavior in smoky environment, children elderly people, deviates from what is expected. ( Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009) The first scientific research on human behavior during fire accidents was conducted in 1950 in the United States and the result concluded that there is a direct relationship between social behavior and fire development. In 1972, Wood carried out another research to capture human behavior during fire escape. This research showed that family members and friends enter the building after initially escaping from it and it also revealed that the people walked through smoke during the escape. The analysis and research done by Sime, Proulx and Fahy revealed that the most important element during any fire escape is the pre-movement time. They also confirmed that there is a strong connection between delayed evacuation and number of fire deaths or injuries. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009) The critical factors that determine the survival in case of fire are characteristics of fire, humans and buildings. The first factor that has a direct influence on the degree of fire response performance is the nature and extent of fire. This includes the growth rate, toxicity, smoke and heat generated. The fumes and smoke is the greatest indicator of a fire although this is usually ignored by the occupants. Many fatal accidents have occurred due to rapid fire development in the initial discovery of the fire. Most people always make incorrect judgments about estimating the danger, assumptions on the speed of the fire, growth rate. According to Purser, the temperature increases to 120 Celsius and oxygen volume reduces below 12%. As a result of smoke, there has been a negative impact in the occupants performance as they often face reduction of sight, respiratory problems and inhalation of toxic gases which result in loss of the ability to see and often result in unconsciousness; slower walking speed because of limited visibility; long-term physical effects such as impairment of the immune system, skin burns. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009) Human factor such as personal characteristics, social and situational characteristics also have a direct impact and influence; during the fire response performance. Personal traits such as observing power, knowledge, experience and common sense are considered a crucial set of personal traits which would help during such fire accidents. Psychological stress may usually increase during such cases and this would result in illogical and uncontrolled behavior. Another significant personal trait is the level of belief. Belief determines a person’s level of motivation and this influences the people to make a choice, persistent action. This is related to Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory which basically states that motivation, emotional stability, activities and thoughts depend upon people’s beliefs. A person’s observational power also will help in detecting danger and perceive danger warnings. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009). There has always been an interest in the fire evacuation process from buildings since 1900s. For people with disabilities, increase in accessibility to buildings is designed in most of the buildings. It was also suggested that the width of the escape routes should be sufficient for the mixed ability population to use during safe evacuation process. (T.J.Shields, K.E.Boyce, N.McConnell 2009) Social factors such as interactions between people, responsibilities of each individual also are considered very crucial during such fire break outs. Strong social bonds would help in responding as a group until rescue is completed. People who have organizational responsibilities such as administrative officers, managers will have more responsibility in ensuring the safety of the people. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009) Response performance is also greatly affected by the design and structure of the buildings. The most important part of any fire safety in a building is the escape route or the fire exit. The physical characteristics include the office settings, conditions available in the building for survival during emergencies, visual accessibility to fire exits, layout, familiarity of the building, and level of differential architecture. BET or emergency response teams are a set of people who would come into action during such fatal accidents. These members are trained in rescue mechanism, fire extinguishment and co-ordination of fire evacuation and this has always shown positive effect on the speed of evacuation. Recent studies have shown that building population and high rise office buildings like WTC has slower movement velocity because of population density. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009) Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos. G. Post and Nancy Oberije conducted an experiment to analyze if the buildings features have direct influence in the evacuation behavior as it depends mainly on the design, structure, lay out of the building This study was done in Hotel Veluwemeer located in Dutch city to evaluate the effectiveness of unannounced fire drills. The evacuation process involves 3 activities which include awareness of danger by external entities, validation of response to danger and safe location during evacuation. Three aspects of surrounding were tested namely the smoke- environmental conditions, exit signs and the building designs and the influence of low lighting in the hotel corridors. The investigation revealed that slow response performance was due to smoke and low paced exit signs in the corridors for direction. It was noticed that the reaction time for the groups escaped through the exit was more than the group escaped through main door which is because the occupants evacuate the building through the known routes which is normally the entrance of the building. It was also studied that specific constructions, spatial construction and lay outs were considered confusing for the occupants. The final study on this experiment revealed the following Influence of smoke an important response performance factor Influence of low placed exit signs has positive effect on response performance factor Influence of personal traits also has a positive and a negative effect on fore response performance. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post, Nancy Oberije 2009) To bring in safety measures, it is important that the people are aware of knowledge available in the field of Psychonomics. Psychonomics basically deals with learning, observing, thinking and deciding and it is concerned with discovering laws which govern human behavior. In the field of fire safety, Psychonomics shows the influence between human behavior and fire characteristics and between human and building characteristics but the concern is with the people’s behavior and perception of the fire and also the building environment. Thus, it is very difficult to understand the occupant’s behavior. (Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post 2009) The process of evacuation is often complex where social relationships are considered as it becomes very difficult to carry out the evacuation process. Research conducted by l.Z Yang et al (2005) on the evacuation time which is based on the design and another based on human behavior. Kin Behavior often occurs during evacuation. This means that the family members insists of getting together in an emergency evacuation and sometimes there is also backtracking phenomenon and to simulate this process of kin behavior, 2 dimensional cellular Automata model is applied to investigate the advantages and disadvantages caused by kin behavior. The study on kin behavior revealved that it is benefitial as it increases the efficiency of the evacuation. It was also concluded that going with the crowd during such fire out break is not harmful. (L.Z.Yang, D.L.Zhao, T.Y.Fang 2005) Thus clear and extensive knowledge of human behavior during fire evacuation is essential for the appropriate policy measures for a safe escape from it. Studies also suggest that the people are influenced by others during the initial phase of fire evacuation. Literary References Daniel Nilsson, Anders Johansson (2009); ‘Social Influence during the initial phase of a fire evacuation’- Fire safety Journal, 44 (71-79) Daniel Nilsson, Maria Johansson, Hakan Frantzich (2009), Evacuation experiment in a road tunnel: A study of human Behavior, 44 (458-468) L.Z.Yang, D.L.Zhao, T.Y.Fang (2005), Simulation of the Kin behavior in building occupant evacuation based on cellular Automaton, Science and Direct, 40 (411-415) Maohua Zhong, Congling Shi, Xuwei Tu, Tairan Fu, Li He (2007), ‘Study of the human evacuation simulation of metro fire safety analysis in China’, Science Direct, 21, 2008 (287-298) Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post (2009),’Building Safety and human behavior in fire: A literature review’, Fire safety Journal, 1-9 Margrethe Kobes, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, Jos.G. Post, Nancy Oberije (2009)’ Way finding during fire evacuation: an analysis of unannounced fire drills in a hotel at night’, Building and Environment, 1-12 T.J.Shields, K.E.Boyce, N.McConnell (2009), ‘the behavior and evacuation experiences of WTV 9/11 evacuees with self-designated mobility impairments, Fire safety journal, 44 (881-893) Read More