A fire alarm notification appliance is an active fire protection component of a fire alarm system. A notification appliance may use audible,visible,or other stimuli to alert the occupants of a fire or other emergency condition requiring action. Audible appliances have been in use longer than any other method of notification. Initially,all appliances were either electromechanical horns or electric bells,which would later be replaced by electronic sounders. Most of today's appliances produce sound levels between 70 and 100 decibels at 3 ft.
The World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan,New York City,was destroyed on September 11,2001,as a result of al-Qaeda's terror attacks. Two commercial airliners hijacked by terrorists were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers of the complex,resulting in a total progressive collapse that killed almost 3,000 people. It was the deadliest and costliest building collapse in history.
Emergency evacuation is an immediate egress or escape of people away from an area that contains an imminent threat,an ongoing threat or a hazard to lives or property.
Evacuation simulation is a method to determine evacuation times for areas,buildings,or vessels. It is based on the simulation of crowd dynamics and pedestrian motion. The number of evacuation software have been increased dramatically in the last 25 years. A similar trend has been observed in term of the number of scientific papers published on this subject. One of the latest survey indicate the existence of over 70 pedestrian evacuation models. Today there are two conferences dedicated to this subject:"Pedestrian Evacuation Dynamics" and "Human Behavior in Fire".
Fire protection engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to protect people,property,and their environments from the harmful and destructive effects of fire and smoke. It encompasses engineering which focuses on fire detection,suppression and mitigation and fire safety engineering which focuses on human behavior and maintaining a tenable environment for evacuation from a fire. In the United States 'fire protection engineering' is often used to include 'fire safety engineering'.
The International Code Council (ICC) is an American nonprofit standards organization,sponsored by the building trades,which was founded in 1994 through the merger of three regional model code organizations in the American construction industry. The organization creates the International Building Code (IBC),a model building code,which has been adopted for use as a base code standard by most jurisdictions in the United States. Despite its name,the International Code Council is not an international organization nor does it consistently follow international best practices.
A fire alarm system is a building system designed to detect,alert occupants,and alert emergency forces of the presence of fire,smoke,carbon monoxide,or other fire-related emergencies. Fire alarm systems are required in most commercial buildings. They may include smoke detectors,heat detectors,and manual fire alarm activation devices. All components of a fire alarm system are connected to a fire alarm control panel. Fire alarm control panels are usually found in an electrical or panel room. Fire alarm systems generally use visual and audio signalization to warn the occupants of the building. Some fire alarm systems may also disable elevators,which are unsafe to use during a fire under most circumstances.
The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) is a professional society for fire protection engineering established in 1950 and incorporated as an independent organization in 1971. It is the professional society representing those practicing the field of fire protection engineering. The Society has over 5,000 members and more than 120 chapters and over 20 student chapters worldwide. SFPE also includes the SFPE foundation with the following mission "Enhancing the scientific understanding of fire and its interaction with the social,natural and built environments".
The National Construction Safety Team Act,signed into law October 1,2002,authorizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish investigative teams to assess building performance and emergency response and evacuation procedures in the wake of any building failure that has resulted in substantial loss of life or that posed significant potential of substantial loss of life.
Fire Technology is a peer-reviewed journal publishing scientific research dealing with fire hazards facing humans and the environment. It publishes original contributions,both theoretical and empirical,that contribute to the solution of problems in fire safety and related fields. It is published by Springer in conjunction with the National Fire Protection Association and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
Pre-movement time is the time going from the start of and emergency requiring an evacuation and the time an household or a pedestrian start moving towards a safe place. The term is generally used in referring to both large-scale and small evacuations. Events that can require pre-movement time include building fires,hurricanes,wars,nuclear accidents,and major conflagrations.
An exit sign is a pictogram or short text in a public facility marking the location of the closest emergency exit to be used in an emergency that necessitates rapid evacuation. Most fire,building,health,and safety codes require exit signs that are always lit.
The NIST World Trade Center Disaster Investigation was a report that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted to establish the likely technical causes of the three building failures that occurred at the World Trade Center following the September 11,2001 terrorist attacks. The report was mandated as part of the National Construction Safety Team Act,which was signed into law on October 1,2002 by President George W. Bush. NIST issued its final report on the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers in September 2005,and the agency issued its final report on 7 World Trade Center in November 2008.
James G. Quintiere is an American mechanical engineer known for his work on fire protection engineering and fire safety. He is professor emeritus in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering. A noted expert on arson,he has testified in criminal trials regarding the causes of certain fires,such as the one that occurred in the Waco siege and killed over 80 people. He has also studied the causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center,concluding that it was probably caused by faulty fireproofing.
Samuel L. Manzello is a technical advisor at Reax Engineering,Inc. and a visiting professor Tohoku University (Japan).
Margaret Law was a British engineer and pioneer in the field of fire science and fire safety engineering who became one of the world's leading fire scientists. In 1971,she was the first woman to become a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers,and has been described as representing 'the epitome of placing applied and rigorous technical excellence at the heart of the design and construction of the built environment'.
Ruggiero Lovreglio is an Italian academic based in Auckland,New Zealand. He is an associate professor at Massey University and a Rutherford Discovery Fellow for Royal Society Te Apārangi. His research is focused on large-scale and small-scale evacuation dynamics and safety training using emerging technologies,such as virtual reality and augmented reality.
Rita Fahy was an Irish American expert in evacuation modelling and human behaviour in fire. She carried out pioneering work in the field by developing one of the first evacuation models in history and debunking the myths surrounding the panic concept in evacuation. Fahy also made substantial contributions to data collection of human behaviour in fires and ran multiple evacuation investigations,developing one of the first evacuation databases for fire protection engineers. She worked on the NFPA investigation on fatal firefighter injuries in the United States.
Enrico Ronchi is an Italian Associate Professor at the Department of Fire Safety Engineering and the Department of Transport and Roads at Lund University,Sweden. He is known for his research in evacuation modeling,human behavior in fire,and fire safety engineering.
Evacuation models are simulation tools designed to predict the movement and behaviour of individuals during an emergency evacuation. These models are today used to simulate evacuations for several disasters,such as building fires,wildfires,hurricanes,and tsunamis. Thes models have been under development since the late 1970s and they are now widely to assess the time required to evacuate buildings,cities or wider regions.
