Fire Emergency in Care Home. An Engineering Answer

Beyond the existing Fire Prevention Certificate rules for buildings, further analysis is appropriate to guarantee a greater correspondence between the rules and the effective level of protection of persons, goods and environment from fire. In the design phase a more complex evaluation which considers all the components involved, in particular individuals, is advisable so as to achieve more cost effective results in fire problem management. It is also important to note that the current European recommendations assign more responsibilities to the constructor and to the customer than those assigned by the national regulations. This study controls whether a care home for elderly and disabled people, the Centro Anziani (Centre of Elderly People) of Majano (Udine, Italy), has been well designed and planned from the point of view of evacuation in case of fire. Care has been taken about the level of residual ability of the guests of the structure. A fire outbreak has been simulated by means of fire modelling software and the available time interval between the ignition start and the flash over has been calculated, after which time the built environment will present a major hazard to individuals. Evacuation model software has later been used to simulate the behaviour of individuals with different levels of disability heading towards the escape route, within the expected time given by the fire modelling. Furthermore, the aim of the work is to propose a model to analyse more complex situations than those now requested by national and international regulations. Such an analysis must be performed in the design and engineering phase to verify whether the design of buildings (which are complex in configuration, in their use and in the typology of the individuals) is correct.