TABLE OF CONTENTS Fire brigade response is an essential component of the fire risk assessment process and so must be considered when the fire risk of a building is being determined.
In the adopted approach, the operation of the fire brigade was divided into separate components. They were then connected again through an event tree, making it possible to evaluate the overall probability of success.
A useful feature of the presented model is that the building fires where a fire unit is able to arrive early enough to have a good chance to save the target can be distinguished from those in which the fire safety depends completely on an automatic fire extinguishing system.
The work presented in this chapter is based on the article by Tillander and Keski-Rahkonen [67].
The turnout time is the length of time from the moment the fire brigade is notified until it leaves the fire station. The response time is the length of time from the moment the fire brigade is notified until the unit is at the fire scene. It is the sum of the turnout time and the travel time. The operating time is the length of time from the moment the fire brigade is notified until the fire unit returns to the fire station.
Curve fitting to the distributions of the turnout time, the response time and the operating time was carried out and it turned out that the gamma distribution seemed a plausible fit.
