Safety of people in the event of a fire
To the escape routes. Examples of pre-movement behaviors are:
➤ completing the activity being undertaken
➤ Trying to verify reality or importance of the warning
➤ Investigation, e.g. to determine source
➤ Safety activities, e.g. stopping machinery
➤ Security activities, locking tills
➤ alerting others
➤ Gathering together others, e.g. children
➤ Fire fighting
➤ collecting personal belongings.
Well understood and rehearsed emergency evacuation procedures help individuals maximise their recognition of the fi re danger and reduce any of the above, possibly unnecessary and irrelevant, pre-movement behaviors.
Travel behaviors
If people perceive the building as unsafe then the normal response is to leave a building as soon as possible. Whether the decision to evacuate is delayed or taken as soon as possible, once it has been made, individual occupants will begin to travel through the escape routes. Their behavior in this phase of evacuation is then influenced by such factors as:
➤ Their role
➤ The number of people in the building
➤ Their distribution within the building at different times
➤ Their familiarity with the building
➤ Their familiarity with the route
➤ The characteristics of the occupants and the building.
Table 10.1 provides some examples of how these factors or ‘travel time determinants’ can influence the travel times of people with various roles.
Table 10.1 The characteristics of the occupants and the building interact and together determine the time required to escape.
Travel time determinant/ Example
Role of the individual
Those with responsibility for others during a fi re, such as parents, elder siblings, nurses, teachers, etc.,
will delay their evacuation to ensure those they are responsible for are ready and able to escape.
Others will have follower relationships and affiliations with such leaders.
Number and distribution
If there are a large number of people in the building, the travel time will be dependent on the maximum
of occupants flow capacity of the escape routes.
This is particularly relevant at times where the distribution of people in the building is concentrated in
certain areas, such as a canteen where there may be normal circulation problems.
Crowd flow can cause danger and prohibit safe escape but the flow can be modified by emergency
evacuation messages.
Familiarity with escape route
People nearest to a familiar entrance route typically leave by that entrance. Familiarity means that even
escape route when this route is not close, there is a tendency to return to it and use it as the escape route.
Regular use of a fi re exit route has a strong influence on people’s inclination to leave by that fi re exit in
an emergency.
Emergency Exit Only’ signs, far from encouraging use of an exit in an emergency, may have a
detrimental rather than positive effect on travel times. It reduces
The characteristics of the occupants and the building
People who are wide awake, fi t and mentally alert have the potential to escape quickly whereas others who may be less fi t or alert will take longer to escape.
In some cases individuals may be unconscious or non-ambulant in which case they will need extra consideration when planning emergency evacuation procedures.