Modeling Human Behavior During Building Fires.
Modeling Human Behavior During Building Fires.
(121 K)
Kuligowski, E. D.
NIST TN 1619; NIST Technical Note 1619; 21 p. December
2008.
Keywords:
human behavior; evacuation; building fires; egress;
safety; building design; occupants; people movement;
evacuation time; human response; human performance
Abstract:
Evacuation models, including engineering hand
calculations and computational tools, are used to
evaluate the level of safety provided by buildings
during evacuation. Building designs and occupant
procedures are based on the results produced from these
models, including evacuation time results (i.e., how
long building occupants will take to evacuate a
building). However, most evacuation models focus
primarily on calculating and predicting evacuation
movement (i.e., how long will it take an occupant to
move from his/her initial position to safety), almost
ignoring the prediction of behaviors that occupants
perform before and during evacuation movement that can
delay their safety (e.g., searching for information,
fighting the fire, and helping others). Instead of
modeling and predicting behavior of simulated occupants,
evacuation models and users often make assumptions and
simplifications about occupant behavior (i.e., what
people do during evacuations) that can be unrealistic
and are likely to produce inaccurate results. A solution
to this problem is to generate a robust, comprehensive,
and validated theory on human behavior during evacuation
from building fires. The social scientific literature
can be gleaned to develop these theories, which can then
be incorporated into the current evacuation models to
accurately simulate occupant behavior during fire
evacuations. These models can then achieve more
realistic results which will lead to safer, more
efficient building design. The purpose of this paper is
to reevaluate our current egress modeling techniques and
advocate for the inclusion of a comprehensive conceptual
model of occupant behavior during building fires. The
paper begins by describing the current state of
evacuation modeling of human behavior in fires and
identifying gaps in current behavioral techniques. The
second part of the paper outlines a general process
model for occupant response to physical and social cues
in a building fire event.
