Evaluation of a fire safety risk prediction model for an existing building

Abstract

Fire is one of the most critical risks devastating to human life and property. Therefore, humans make different efforts to deal with fire hazards. Many techniques have been developed to assess fire safety risks. One of these methods is to predict the outbreak of a fire in buildings, and although it is hard to predict when a fire will start, it is critical to do so to safeguard human life and property. This research deals with evaluating the safety risks of the existing building in the city of Samawah/Iraq and determining the appropriateness of these buildings in terms of safety from fire hazards. Twelve parameters are certified based on the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA2016) code. The concept of giving weight to each criterion was adopted to classify the criteria according to their importance and then conduct an on-site examination of these existing buildings to test the selected criteria. The result indicates a possible fire risk in these buildings due to the lack of compliance with fire safety instructions in the approved codes.

Keywords

• building codes
• hazards segregation
• compliance
• inspection
• parameter
• exit access