Relationship between Occupant Characteristics, Building Characteristics, and Pre-Fire Evacuation Time in Medium Plastic Industries in Thailand

Abstract

An evaluation of Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) is a crucial step in performance based on fire safety engineering design. Moreover, pre-evacuation time is also essential for RSET. Consequently, pre-evacuation time is regarded as key aspects of evacuation process. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine factors related to pre-evacuation time. Subjects were 375 workers among ten medium plastic industries. Data were collected by using a standardized occupant characteristics questionnaire, building characteristics survey and standardized observation form. Pearson’s correlation, ANOVA and Regression analysis were performed in the analysis. The findings revealed several factors significantly associated with pre-evacuation time (P<0.05). Those factors are number of building floors, building age, number of windows, number of fire exit doors, distance from work station to fire exit door, width of fire exit door. The occupant characteristics were also associated with pre-evacuation time, which are not participated in fire exercise and occupant attitude. Regression analysis covers eight affected variables from those analysis. Only four influenced variables consisted of occupant attitude in fire, number of fire exit door, no fire training participation, and distance from work station to fire exit door were tested by using regression analysis. A multiple regression model was run to predict pre-evacuation time from four influenced variables. These variables statistically significantly predicted pre-evacuation time, the regression model is a good fit of the data. These are crucial factors to determine pre-evacuation time in further research.