TABLE OF CONTENTS The model described in this chapter was developed within the framework of the Fire Code Reform Centre Project 4 [14]. It is a submodel of the CESARE-Risk Model. Its operation starts at fire initiation. The duration of operation is a user input variable. The submodel calculates the number of persons remaining in different locations in a residential building at particular times during a fire incident and calculates the incapacitation of occupants based on a fractional incapacitating dose (FID) formulation and heat radiation. The ultimate aim of the submodel is to calculate the expected number of deaths (END) for people who remain in the building.
The model has input from other CESARE-Risk models, in particular the system model and the smoke and fire growth models.
Occupant response in a fire emergency can be depicted as involving three stages (recognition, action or coping behaviour, and evacuation). These stages are a convenient summary of many actions, the most diverse being in the coping stage, and they are not universally applicable. In order to cope with the operational demands of a time-based risk model, the time when evacuation starts is used to separate the first two stages (initial recognition and coping behaviour) from the third stage (evacuation movement), leading to the distinction between the response model and the evacuation model.
Within the two periods, there are fixed units of time. The time step from the system model is the default time unit for the human behaviour model. The model...
