Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of fire safety measures on evacuation safety in care facilities for the elderly. Fire safety measures include fire protection provisions and management profiles. In order to accomplish this goal, the authors developed an evacuation simulation model, which could simulate rescuers' behavior to assist nonambulatory occupants. It is implemented by using the object-oriented computer language, Smalltalk. The model can set conditions concerning each occupant's egress ability and track the movements of individual occupants or rescuers. To examine the performance of the model, several case studies were conducted for two types of care facilities. In the case studies, the effects of several fire safety measures were evaluated from two points of view: building safety features in relation to the spread of smoke and the evacuation risk. From the results of the case studies, the effectiveness of fire safety measures was discussed.