Structural Equation Modelling For Improving Fire Safety Reliability through Enhancing Fire Safety Management on High-Rise Building

Abstract

The growth of high-rise buildings is triggered by expensive land prices and the need for construction for hotels, offices, and colleges. Besides the great benefits, high-rise building also has a consequence of fire risks. This indicates that its extinction is challenging with the occurrence of fire outbreaks, due to the flammable furniture and characteristics of high-rise buildings. To anticipate this condition, fire safety protection in high-rise buildings should be reliable. Furthermore, the Indonesian government has reportedly issued regulations and technical guidelines regarding the reliability of fire safety, although fires still occur and cause loss of life and property. Science and engineering also provide a performance-based alternative approach. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the reliability of the fire safety model produced from the integration of FSM (Fire Safety Management) variables, namely flame prevention, people safety, monitoring, audit, review and reactive assessment. In a high-rise building, the initial model was validated by experts within the fire safety field. At the initial stage, the identification of FSM implementation was carried out for building functions in Jakarta, where construction surveys were conducted using a questionnaire and checklist for the completeness of the protection system. Using a spreadsheet and the Smart PLS application, the data were also processed to produce the implementation of FSM and test the effect of independent variables on the dependent factors, respectively. Subsequently, the sub-variables with low FSM implementation were used to improve the fire safety conditions in buildings. By implementing all FSM variables, reliability was then achieved, as improvement efforts were prioritized on the sub-variables with low implementation and priority on fire prevention and monitoring, audit, and review. The integration of the FSM variables' implementation also consistently produced fire safety reliability, as well as guaranteed life and property protection.