Egress Strategies

[Link]. Supat
Patvichaichod
Faculty of Engineering at
Sriracha
Kasetsart University
References
• Jeffrey S. Tubbs and Brian J. Meacham. Egress Design Solutions;
A Guide to Evacuation and Crowd Management Planning.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Richard W. Bukowski and Jeffrey S. Tubbs; Egress Concepts
and Design Approaches. In SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection
Engineering, 5th Edition. Society of Fire Protection Engineer.
• National Fire Protection Association; NFPA 101, Life Safety
Code, 2018 Edition. National Fire Protection Association

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 2

Topics
• Introduction

• Definitions

• Egress system goals and objectives

• General egress strategies

• Designing for occupants with disabilities

• Prescribed performance

• Performance-based approaches

• Selecting and evaluating options

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Definitions
• High-rise building or tall building; A building where the floor
of an occupiable story is greater than 75 ft (23 m) above the
lowest level of fire department vehicle access.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 4

Definitions
• Active fire protection; A group of systems that require some
amount of action in order to work efficiently in the event of a fire.
These actions may be manually operated, like a fire extinguisher
or automatic, like a sprinkler. So, when fire and smoke is
detected in a facility, a fire alarm will alert those who are inside
the building and work to actively put out or slow the fire.

• Passive fire protection; A group of systems that

compartmentalize a building through the use of fire-resistance
rated walls and floors, keeping the fire from spreading quickly
and providing time to escape for people in the building.

• Fire warden; Official(s) assigned to prevent or fight fires.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 5
Introduction
• Many of the current design concepts
and features in the codes were
implemented in response to specific
events-often particularly significant
fire events in which large numbers of
lives were lost.

• In general, these egress design

concepts and features are aimed at
providing building systems and
features that allow people removed
from the fire initiation to reach “a
place of safety” in the event of fire.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 6
Introduction
• There are a number of different ways in which these design
concepts and features can be combined into egress strategies that
fit the particular needs of a building.

• Factors that must be considered when deciding upon an egress

strategy for a given building include
• the size of a facility and its occupant capacity
• the complexity of the footprint and stair arrangements
• the characteristics of its occupants; whether occupants sleep in the
facility, are infirm, have disabilities, or they are restricted to the facility in
some way
• hazards that may be based on the contents of the facility or are in some
way related to its design.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 7
Egress System Goals and
Objectives
• The primary aim of an egress system is to allow people to move
from a hazardous location to a location of relative safety during
an event.

• The concept of relative safety is an important one. An ideal

egress system would prevent everyone from being killed or
injured during an event, but such an ideal is infeasible, and
therefore not required by or expected from existing codes and
standards.

• Fire events during which it is impossible to protect all of a

facility’s occupants are conceivable.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 8

Egress System Goals and
Objectives
• The most common example is when a person (or persons) come
in contact with the fire source itself. This can occur if someone
falls asleep while smoking (in a chair, sofa, or bed), or undertakes
an activity that causes a fire, such as cooking or welding.

• It can also occur if people are incapacitated while in the room of

fire origin and there is no one available to help them suppress the
fire or exit, or if they are proximate to the initiating event, such
as an explosion, which both ignites a fire and incapacitates the
nearby occupants.

• Another example is arson: the person who deliberately started

the fire (or others) may succumb to its effects.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 9
Egress System Goals and
Objectives
• NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, Assume
Section 4.1; that Patient
1 is
• A goal of this Code is to provide an smoking in
bed and
environment for the occupants
ignites her
that is reasonably safe from fire by sleeping
the following means: gown and
bedding
• (1) Protection of occupants not
intimate with the initial fire • Patient 2’s egress route involves passing the
development fire in Patient 1’s bed. Therefore, the
applicable Code requirements combine a host
• (2) Improvement of the of building features, systems, and staff
actions to save Patient 2.
survivability of occupants intimate
with the initial fire development • In doing so, the level of safety offered to
Patient 2 has the effect required by (2)* of
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod improving the survivability of10Patient 1, who is
intimate with initial fire development.
General Egress Strategies
• An egress strategy aims to fulfill the objective of moving people from
a place of relative hazard to a place of relative safety during a hazard
event.

• This can be achieved in a number of ways:

• The hazard can be reduced to such an extent that people outside the
hazard area are not at significant risk.
• People can be moved to a place of safety within a facility.
• People can be completely evacuated from a facility to open space.

• Such a strategy can involve not only the design of a facility and all
principal systems within it, but also the managerial policies,
procedures, and training needed for successful egress in a fire event.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 11
General Egress Strategies
• Egress strategies can range from
• evacuating all occupants (simultaneous full evacuation)
• evacuating some of the occupants (partial evacuation)
• defending occupants in place

• Occupants can be exited directly to the exterior, or they can be directed to

a safe place within the building.

• For full or partial evacuation strategies, the process can be phased, through
evacuating only a portion of the occupants at a given time, or all occupants
can be notified and exit simultaneously.

• For partial strategies, the non-evacuating occupants follow a defend-in-

place strategy, and many of the issues involved with phased strategies
apply.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 12
General Egress Strategies
Protect-in-place
• A protect-in-place strategy is also referred to as a defend in-place
strategy or a shelter-in-place strategy.

• The concept of a protect-in-place strategy is to provide sufficient fire

and life safety systems and features to allow occupants to remain in
place during an event, provided those occupants are not likely to be
intimate with the first materials burning.

• This strategy is often used in facilities in which occupants have a

limited ability to be moved
• they are incapacitated or immobile due to medical reasons (as in health
care facilities)
• they cannot be allowed to leave a secure area (as in detention and
correctional occupancies)
• they need other assistance or direct supervision to leave (as in certain
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institutional occupancies).
General Egress Strategies
Protect-in-place
• In hospital surgical suites and intensive care units, it may be
difficult— if not impossible—for patients to initiate and
complete escape without assistance. Some patients cannot be
moved without significantly jeopardizing their safety. For these
situations, a protect-in-place may even be used within the
compartment of origin.
• US building codes have required features for many years in
high-rise buildings to allow protect-in-place strategies.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 14

General Egress Strategies
Protect-in-place
• Protect-in-place strategies typically rely on a combination of active and
passive fire protection features to provide an appropriate level of safety
for the occupants.

• For example, facilities using a protect-in-place strategy are usually

protected throughout with automatic sprinklers, and passive
compartmentation is used to prevent smoke and fire spread between
compartments.

• In hospitals, detention facilities, and other similar spaces where

supervision is provided, smoke detection is often provided to alert staff of
the emergency conditions and to prompt staff that specific actions are
necessary.

• For example, in a hospital, nurses may be instructed to close all patient

doors upon activation of the fire alarm system, thus providing an added
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level of compartmentation.
General Egress Strategies
Protect-in-place
• This figure depicts a typical hospital floor

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General Egress Strategies
Protect-in-place
• Although protect-in-place strategies can work well, they are most effective
when the building occupants can be relied upon to stay in place until the
fire is suppressed or they are instructed to move.

• If people decide to move from a place of relative safety to some other

location, such as outside the building, the process of evacuating may in
fact place them and others at increased risk.

• For example, several fires in high-rise buildings have resulted in occupant

deaths in areas remote from the fire. In some of these incidents, those
occupants who attempted to leave the protected area died while exiting,
while those who stayed in place survived-in some cases even in
compartments immediately adjacent to the compartment of fire origin.

• In a 1988 fire in a New York residential building, four occupants attempting

to evacuate died, while those occupants who remained in their residences
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were not injured.
General Egress Strategies
Protect-in-place
• In order for protect-in-place strategies to work, communication
and training are essential, both to convince occupants to
remain where they are within a building, and to elicit the proper
response from supervisors or others being relied upon to take
action.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 18

General Egress Strategies
Relocation to a safe place
• Relocating occupants from an area of potential hazard to a
protected area of refuge or other safe place within a building
can be a safe and effective strategy, and represents a variation
on the protect-in-place strategy.
• The defines a safe place as “. . . an interior or exterior area
wherein protection from hazards is provided by
construction or appropriate separation distance.”
• As with protect-in-place strategies, relocation requires attention
to management procedures and may require special detection
and notification systems or other appropriate life safety
features.

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General Egress Strategies
Relocation to a safe place
• Hospitals, nursing homes, detention and correctional facilities,
and institutional facilities are examples of facilities that use
relocation strategies. These facilities typically use horizontal
exits, smoke barriers, protected floor separations, or other
appropriate means to protect relocated occupants.
• Relocation strategies can be used in tall buildings. Here,
occupants are directed to relocate to floors below the fire and
away from any fire impact.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 20

General Egress Strategies
Relocation to a safe place
• A relocation strategy can be effective for fire events in
buildings. For example, the city of Hong Kong Provisions of
Means of Escape in Case of Fire requires that tall buildings
provide refuge floors at intervals of not fewer than 20 stories.

• The overall intent of refuge floors is to provide the following:

• A safe place for people to have a short rest before continuing to
escape downward
• Safe passage for people using one staircase, when encountering
smoke, fire, or some other obstruction in that staircase, to move to
an alternative staircase
• A place of assembly for firefighters.
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General Egress Strategies
Phased evacuation
• Over the past several years,
evacuation strategies for large or
tall buildings have tended toward
phased or sequential evacuation If a fire occurred within zone A, zone C might not
as a means to optimize the use of need to be evacuated. A fire in B may require all of
the halls to be evacuated. One advantage of this
the egress system. approach is reduced business interruption due to
false alarms, another is the efficient use of exits.
• In buildings with very large
footprints, the areas affected by a
fire or other hazard may be
evacuated while those occupants
in areas remote from the incident
remain in place.
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General Egress Strategies
Phased evacuation
• In high-rise buildings in the US,
typically the event floor and two
floors above and below the event
floor are evacuated.

• In theory, this allows occupants on

the fire floor unobstructed use of
the exit stairs, thus optimizing use
of the exit components and
reducing the evacuation time for
the affected floor or areas.

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General Egress Strategies
Phased evacuation
• In both examples, occupants not in immediate danger are
notified of the event and told to remain in place pending further
instruction (hence the term "phased evacuation”). Based on the
severity of the incident, additional (or perhaps all) occupants
may be evacuated by responders.

• In practice, phased evacuation strategies are more often

employed in tall buildings, as the prescriptive code does not
specifically allow or disallow phased evacuation on a single
floor.

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General Egress Strategies
Phased evacuation
• Phased evacuation is a way to optimize egress system efficiency. It
works because the number of occupants expected to
simultaneously evacuate during an event is significantly lower than
the total occupant load of the facility.

• This generally means that the egress system can be developed for
the design occupant load located within the designated areas or on
the designated floors.

• This strategy is sound for fire events, as the approach allows

occupants in those areas or floors that are impacted to descend
stairs without the impedance of occupants exiting the non-impacted
floors. Occupants in unaffected areas or on unaffected floors can
either exit later, if necessary, or, if appropriate, remain in place.
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 General Egress Strategies
Phased evacuation

Note that this

occupant load of simple example
100 occupants does not include
per floor and two pre-movement
48-inch- times
wide stairs.

The calculated movement time to The calculated movement time to evacuate

evacuate the fire floor was the fire floor was approximately 8 minutes
approximately 5 minutes 30 seconds 50 seconds. This represents a 60% increase
in exiting time.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 26
General Egress Strategies
Simultaneous full evacuation
• Simultaneous full-building evacuation has been the norm for most
buildings up to six stories for many years and tends to be the
most common strategy for life safety.
• This is usually arranged through unprotected paths of travel, with
distances appropriate to the building use, to protected stairs that
discharge to the public way.
• For tall buildings, large assembly buildings, or other facilities that
require full-building evacuation, a performance-based engineered
approach may be necessary to evaluate the impact of evacuating
a large number of people simultaneously.
• For tall buildings, evacuation elevators can be used to support
simultaneous full-building evacuation and substantially reduce
evacuation times while addressing the needs of people with
disabilities.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 27
General Egress Strategies
Simultaneous full evacuation
• Simultaneous full-building evacuation will require considerably longer
times for many occupants to make their way out of a tall building.
• This leads to questions on messaging strategies and how occupants
will react during the evacuation. Special messaging strategies with
enhanced voice communication systems and additional zoning to
keep occupants informed of the situation in real-time can help to
address these issues.
• Such situational awareness features can provide specific real-time
information about an event, allowing occupants to make better
decisions regarding whether to stay or leave, or more informed
decisions about route choice and adapting route choice to the
situation.
• Careful planning is necessary to be sure that these systems do not
become too complicated, that messages are appropriate, and that
increased reliability is built into systems.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 28
General Egress Strategies
Simultaneous full evacuation
• The time required for evacuation raises concerns related to
occupant and staff training.
• Occupants benefit from training to give people a feeling for the
length of time necessary to exit the building. This would be
particularly powerful if occupants understood how staff would
manage the process and what process and information decision
makers use during emergencies.

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Designing for Occupants with
Disabilities
• For this discussion, the term disability referred only to
wheelchair users, the visually impaired, deaf or hard-of-hearing
people.
• Strategies for accommodating occupants with disabilities fall
into three general categories:
• defending in place through providing areas of refuge
• allowing for evacuation through safe elevators or other means
• implementing procedures to assist occupants with disabilities during
emergencies.

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Designing for Occupants with Disabilities
Areas of refuge
• Areas of refuge provide occupants with mobility impairments a
place to wait in an emergency until the arrival of help, be it a
responding firefighter, other emergency personnel, or specially
trained building staff.
• Areas of refuge can include specially designed rooms or exterior
balconies, as well as portions of floors separated through
horizontal exits.
• Horizontal exits separate floors into one or several areas of
refuge through fire- rated walls and doors.

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Designing for Occupants with Disabilities
Areas of refuge
• Areas of refuge can be incorporated into exit stair landings.

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Designing for Occupants with Disabilities
Evacuation elevators
• While typical elevators are not designed to be used during an
emergency evacuation, evacuation elevators are designed with
standby power and other features according to the elevator
safety standard and can be used for the evacuation of
individuals with disabilities.
• Evacuation elevators provide for occupant self-evacuation
through elevators that are intended to be used during fire
events.
• In buildings over 30 m in height, UK standards require a fire
service elevator that is also intended to provide egress
assistance to people with disabilities.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 33

Designing for Occupants with Disabilities
Procedural strategies
• Procedural strategies, such as the buddy system, can be an
effective means of providing safe evacuation methods for
occupants with disabilities, but can also be difficult to set up
and maintain.
• Traditional “buddy systems” that pair the disabled with a co-
worker to provide assistance are effective; however, this needs
the co-worker to be available at the time of the emergency

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 34

Designing for Occupants with Disabilities
Procedural strategies
• Stair descent devices, also known as evacuation chairs, can be
provided on floors occupied by a person with a mobility
limitation to help when evacuation is required

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 TDDs or TTYd

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 39

Performance-Based Approaches
• Full building evacuation typically requires larger overall egress
capacities than commonly required by current codes based on
phased evacuation.
• However, there is no universally accepted maximum evacuation
time, nor would a single such time have any meaning, given the
diversity of buildings and variability in use and occupant
populations.
• Performance-based fire safety analysis and design has been
developing since the early 1970s, when scientists and
engineers began applying their knowledge about fire growth
and development directly to the design of building fire safety
measures, rather than focusing their efforts predominantly on
materials research, development, and testing and relying
strictly on code-prescribed measures as the only fire safety
solutions.
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 40
Performance-Based Approaches
Time-based egress calculations
• One of the most common approaches to performance-based or
engineered egress time-based egress calculations design
involves time-based egress calculations.
• Time-based egress calculations rely on the concept that the
available safe egress time (ASET) must be longer than the
required safe egress time (RSET).
• In other words, the estimated time required for occupants to
reach a place of safety (including deciding to move and moving)
must be greater than the estimated time available before
untenable conditions are reached in the paths of egress.

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Selecting and Evaluating Options
• When selecting an appropriate egress strategy, the strategy
needs to match the ability, activity and responsiveness of the
occupants, the technology used, and the ability and reliability of
staff or occupants to assist in the process.
• The selection of an appropriate egress strategy hinges upon the
emergency scenarios considered, and evacuation and emergency
response planning. The communication and messaging strategies
need to match the evacuation strategy.
• Other considerations include the number of people who will need
to evacuate, whether all occupants within the facility will be
exposed to hazardous conditions, and the occupants’ familiarity
with the exits and egress routes.
• Egress strategies should be developed to guide the design of
egress features, rather than be developed after the building is
[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 45
built.
Selecting and Evaluating Options
• For complex facilities, it is often necessary to develop an overall
fire and life safety strategy to coordinate these features. Voice
communication, suppression, and detection system zones need
to match with the evacuation zones. Emergency lighting is
necessary in exit pathways to allow safe movement during
power outages. Exiting components will likely require
appropriate fire ratings.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 46

Selecting and Evaluating Options
• A single solution may not be appropriate for complex facilities.
These facilities may benefit from adaptive or event-based
strategies. With adaptive or event-based evacuation, conditions
dictate the specific actions and egress strategy.
• During an event, the situation is assessed and a strategy is
selected based on that assessment.
• For example, consider a fire event on a single floor, a strategy
including relocation through exit stairs and protecting in place
those on unaffected floors may be appropriate. For the same
building, a building power outage may require full building
evacuation.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 47

Selecting and Evaluating Options
• Substantial training is required to minimize confusion,
particularly where differing responses are expected for different
events.
• Appropriate systems and methods are needed for decision
makers to quickly obtain credible information about the event
and to empower decision makers with the appropriate authority
to make egress decisions based on that information. Training
can help, but the provision of real-time instructions is necessary
to increase the likelihood of obtaining the correct response from
a wide range of potential responses.

[Link]. Supat Patvichaichod 48