Synopses & Reviews
Fire safety regulations in many countries require Fire Risk Assessment to be carried out for buildings such as workplaces and houses in multiple occupation. This duty is imposed on a Responsible Person and also on any other persons having control of buildings in compliance with the requirements specified in the regulations.
Although regulations only require a qualitative assessment of fire risk, a quantitative assessment is an essential first step for performing cost-benefit analysis of alternative fire strategies to comply with the regulations and selecting the most cost-effective strategy. To facilitate this assessment, various qualitative, semi-quantitative and quantitative techniques of fire risk assessment, already developed, are critically reviewed in this book and some improvements are suggested.
This book is intended to be an expanded version of Part 7: Probabilistic risk assessment, 2003, a Published Document (PD) to British Standard BS 7974: 2001 on the Application of Fire Safety Engineering Principles to the Design of Buildings. Ganapathy Ramachandran and David Charters were co-authors of PD 7974 Part 7.
Quantitative Risk Assessment in Fire Safety is essential reading for consultants, academics, fire safety engineers, fire officers, building control officers and students in fire safety engineering. It also provides useful tools for fire protection economists and risk management professionals, including those involved in fire insurance underwriting.
Synopsis
For over a century, regulatory control of building designs for fire safety has been mainly achieved through a framework of prescriptive rules depending heavily on simple standard fire tests and Codes of Practice. These rules are highly empirical and can lead to costly over-designs, particularly for large buildings.
However, it is being recognised that probabilistic techniques using statistical information provided by actual fires offer methods that are more rational for dealing with the randomness of fire risk and effectiveness of fire safety measures. Quantitative Risk assessment in Fire Safety explores this new approach.
It examines the probability of initiation, smoke movement and fire spread and the reliability of detection, human response and Fire Service intervention. The authors also discuss the implication that such factors have for risk assessment and fire safety. Quantitative Risk assessment in Fire Safety is a book for anyone involved in fire safety and protection.