Dwelling Fire Safety Evacuation (DFSE): A Conceptual Approach

Abstract

Fire ignition needs three elements consisting of heat, oxygen and fuel that may lead to a significant threat to life and property, in urban and rural areas. Various researches have produced statistics on fire breakouts around the globe that paid attention to residential fire. In the case of Malaysia, residential or dwellings have contributed to increased fire casualties especially related to the accidental fire that was caused by electrical origins, cooking appliances, faulty or misuse of equipment, careless handling of fire or hot substances as well as negligence. Due to that fact, the most critical features of safety in building in the fire event is evacuation or probability of safe escape. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be utilized as it is effectively making sure that the evacuation plan is kept up to date and facilitate communications. Therefore, this paper aims to establish a conceptual framework for Dwelling Fire Safety Evacuation (DFSE). The method used for this paper is reviewing literature including journals, conference proceedings, reports and guidelines. The findings of this paper are the components of DSFE conceptual framework which consist of three elements including Fire Scenarios (i.e., design fire and boundary condition), Survival Strategies (i.e., extinguish, shelter and evacuation), and Safety (i.e., shortest time). The conceptual framework is expected to assist in future data collection for the development of the DSFE framework.