Title: Fire risk to a local shopping mall

Authors: W.K. Chow, M.Y. Ng

Addresses: Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Abstract: This paper addresses the safety aspects of local shopping malls. There are concerns about occupant density, high fire load and inadequate fire safety provisions such as passive building design, active fire protection and fire safety management. Therefore, a preliminary study on such a shopping mall was carried out in order to understand the potential fire hazard. A site survey was carried out to ascertain the geometry of the mall and the shops concerned, fire safety provisions including means of escape, fire services installations and transient occupant loading. A fire risk analysis of the shops concerned was made to study the potential hazards of the building and its contents, life safety and the activities being carried out. Probable fire environments are simulated by a two-layer zone model.

Keywords: fire risk analysis; potential fire hazards; fire safety provisions; life safety; property loss; business interruption; escape routes; response time; evacuation time; required escape time; risk management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRAM.2002.002550

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 2002 Vol.3 No.2/3/4, pp.152-169

Published online: 23 Jul 2003 *

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