A078 FSE checklist

A fire safety evaluation system for prioritizing fire improvements in old high-rise buildings in Hong Kong

Brief:

Fire safety in old high-rise buildings is of great concern to the general public as a result of several big fires occurred over the past 10 years. A fire safety evaluation system is essential for building engineers to quantify the fire safety level, to identify the measures to be improved and to schedule the corresponding improvements. Together with a scoring system with weighting factors derived for local buildings, this paper proposes a universal fire safety evaluation (FSE) checklist for fire safety level quantification and improvements prioritization in old high-rise buildings. In a survey, the fire safety levels of 122 old high-rise buildings in Hong Kong were quantified using the scoring system. The survey results showed that only less than 5% of the inspected samples reached the standard required for life safety. The FSE checklist was then applied to prioritize the improvement works of 10 selected buildings with the lowest scores.

This study is part of a student project work: S.W. Lau (BEng)

Further information:

Wong LT, Lau SW, 2007. A fire safety evaluation system for prioritizing fire improvements in old high-rise buildings in Hong Kong, Fire Technology 43(3) 233-249.