Fire Safety and Engineering: Technical Papers Book 1

Abstract

Australia has achieved an excellent fire safety record compared with other countries. The vast majority of fire deaths in buildings occur in dwellings. A very small percentage of fire deaths occur in non-residential buildings, yet there is very significant expenditure on fire safety and protection. There is evidence that substantial cost savings are possible while maintaining our current fire safety record. The design for fire safety in building is controlled and administered in a highly legalistic, regulatory environment. There are numerous factors which affect the fire safety of a building. Traditional approaches cannot readily quantify the integrated effect of such factors on life safety. Building regulations, for example, clearly do no take account of all the possible interactions between physical fire safety features, provisions for maintenance, and the nature of the people and activities in the building. There is a need to introduce design flexibility to consider a wide range of possible fire-safety systems.