Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The purpose of this study is to obtain a better understanding of human behavior in fire. In this study, we measured the physiological indices (sympathetic nerve, Parasympathetic nerve) and the psychological index (questionnaires of feelings factors) during fire drills at the Disaster Prevention-Training center in Hiroshima, Japan. This training center has a unique stressful training program in which drill participants stay overnight. Devices for measuring physiological index were attached to some participants during fire drills. After the fire drills, we conducted questionnaires of feelings factors value on emergency state. We analyzed physiological indices, psychological indices and correlation between physiololical indices and psychological indices. As a result of this study, we understood the following results. 1. High sympathetic nerve value and low parasympathetic nerve value were observed during some trainings in which participants have difficulty to forecast next necessary actions. 2. The correlation coefficients among feelings factors were relatively high. 3. The correlation coefficients among sympathetic nerve values, parasympathetic nerve values and feelings factors values were relatively low. Nevertheless, Maximum of parasympathetic nerve values of ratio for average of 24 hours tends to be low in the condition of high feelings factors values.