- Author
-
Jiang, H.
|
Gwynne, S.
|
Galea, E.
|
Lawrence, P.
|
Jian, F.
|
Ingason, H.
- Title
- Forensic Investigation of Fire Incidents Using Computational Fire Engineering Techniques and Experimental Data.
- Coporate
- University of Greenwich, London, England
- Report
-
Paper No. 04/IM/115
June 2004
27 p.
- Keywords
-
evacuation
|
scenarios
|
case histories
|
fire incidence
|
fire models
|
fire protection engineering
|
design applications
|
experiments
|
fire hazards
|
temperature
|
statistics
|
exposure
|
fire data
|
survivors
- Identifiers
- Computational Fire Engineering (CFE) tools; buildingEXODUS; Macedonian Association, Gothenburg, Sweden, October 29, 1998; floor plan of Gothenburg Disco building in which incident took place; Swedish National Testing and Research Institute (SP) experiments; CFAST (Consolidated Fire growth And Smoke Transport); basic characteristics of simulated population; hazard settings within each of the zones; average evacuation statistics; distribution of FIH values amongst survivros for a single simulation
- Abstract
- This paper examines the application of evacuation modelling tools to forensically analyse a fire scenario similar to the tragic Gothenburg fire incident of 1998. It is not claimed that the analysis accurately reproduces the Gothenburg incident, as a key component required for such a forensic analysis, i.e. the evolution of the fire, is not adequately represented within the evacuation model. However, the model predictions bare a striking resemblance to the events that took place during the actual incident. The model predictions correctly show that the evacuees experienced severe congestion during their attempted evacuation. While over predicting the number of fatalities, the model successfully predicted the fatality order of magnitude. Furthermore, the predicted location of the fatalities matched that found in the actual incident. In addition, the number of injuries sustained due to the interaction of the evacuating population with the deteriorating environmental conditions that was predicted in this scenario matched those produced during the actual incident. The analysis provides insight into the tragic event and an understanding of why so many people died at the Gothenburg incident. Clearly, evacuation and fire simulation models have an important role to play in fire investigation.