A series of fire load survey was conducted on residential buildings in Canada. A pilot survey [27] on movable
fire loads in residential living rooms was conducted. Questionnaires consisting of 64 questions were distributed
through the Internet to collect pertinent information. The distribution of living room floor areas, window number
and areas, main combustible contents, fire load and fire load density were analyzed. The mean fire load density was
600 MJ/m2 with a standard deviation of 200 MJ/m2
. In a project named CFMRD (Characterization of Fires in MultiSuite
Residential Dwellings), a survey [28] was conducted on floor area and combustible contents in multi-family
dwellings. A novel method was adopted. Information was obtained through the real-estate website which offered the
size and photographs of main rooms. Then the fire load was evaluated primarily based on this kind of information.
The average fire load densities were found to be 807 MJ/m2 for kitchens; 393 MJ/m2 for dining rooms; 288 MJ/m2
for basement living rooms; 534 MJ/m2 for Primary bedrooms; 594 MJ/m2 for secondary bedrooms.
There are many high-rise residential buildings in Hong Kong. People are concerned with the fire safety of these
buildings. Chow et al. [3] had selected and surveyed eight old high-rise residential buildings in Hong Kong. The
movable fire load was reviewed by visual inspection. Due to small average living area, the fire load density in half
of the buildings surveyed exceeded the upper limit of 1135MJm-2 specified in the local code [29]. Another fire load
density survey[30] conducted in 50 typical residential flats in Hong Kong indicated that the average fire load density
was about 1400 MJ/m2
.
Residential buildings can be subdivided into several categories, such as apartment building or house; high-rise
building or normal building. They have an effect on the