A Study on Securing Safety for High Rise Building Fires - Applying Active Fire Escape Systems -

Under the Korean Enforcement Decree of the Building Act, all high story apartment houses more than 5 stories high are mandated to install a fire evacuation system to ensure safe evacuation from fire accidents and providing quick and easy bi-directional escape route when main entrance is blocked by flame or toxic smoke. However, the current fire evacuation system shows a lack of understanding from residents and thus is widely ignored for having insufficient safety functions, especially vis-à-vis fire emergencies. Studies have found that an alternative evacuation method, the escapable fire evacuation system, has been analyzed for safety evaluation compared with the conventional passive fire escape system and can bring efficient and safer solutions, providing high rise residents escape from fire accidents. Evaluation for safety evacuation has been performed by the Fire Dynamics Simulation and applying Pathfinder simulation. This resulted in providing appropriate escape routes within the safety escape time and allowed for people in high rise building fires to get to safety.