Abstract
In recent years, there were several incidents of fire in secondary
schools in Malaysia. A study conducted by the Ministry of
Education has found that there were outbreaks of fire in 22
primary and secondary schools and in institutions of higher
learning for the year 1999 resulting in losses of RM 534,400.
This study was carried out to identify fire safety conditions in
residential colleges in a local Malaysian university. An audit
approach as well as the use of questionnaire was adopted to
collect primary data for the study. The audit results show that the
overall fire safety condition was at 76 percent compliance level.
The survey results showed that only predisposing factors such as
knowledge, attitude and belief have a positive relationship with
the fire safety behavior and lifestyle (p , 0.5). The survey
identified six important elements for fire safety and in ranking
order they are: belief in the importance of fire safety, perception
on the need for immediate response to fire incidence, knowledge
in fire safety, attitude of occupants, social influence, and
feedback on fire safety issues.