Fire Safety Issues in High-Rise Residential Buildings

Fires in buildings are always related to either the human error or human negligence. Even a small fire can cause devastation if it has involved the dwelling buildings. Therefore, escape routes in high-rise residential buildings are supposed to provide a safe egress for the building occupants to reach at the safe designated area. Elements of escape route such as steps, handrail, balustrade and staircase slope should have been designed and installed in such a way that they are safe to use. Are the designs of those elements safe to use? Moreover, most of the time taken to evacuate from the building during a building fire is to open the fire doors, pass through many corner and U-Turn, horizontal and vertical exits.From the studies on escape route design and specification, there are a number of significant suggestions can be drawn on how escape routes should be designed and what elements should be included when designing it. These suggestions are based on the findings from the observations, questionnaire surveys, and simulation of the different layouts of high-rise residential buildings and further simulation analysis on the 260 study models developed.