ABSTRACT
As defined in Section 3.7.2.2, the total time taken by an occupant or group of occupants, say, on a particular floor of a building to reach a safe place within or outside the building is the sum of three time periods. In sequential order, the first period is the time taken to discover a fire by occupants or detect the fire by automatic detection systems after the start of the fire. The second period is the ‘recognition time’ or ‘gathering phase’ which has been discussed in several research studies concerned with human behaviour in fires. The third is the evacuation time (Section 9.3) relating to the period from the commencement of evacuation to reaching a safe place. The actions of the occupants during the three periods mentioned above would depend, to some extent, on whether they are in the room of fire origin or in some other room – see Figures 9.1 and 9.2 reproduced from Ramachandran (1993a).
