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Fires have the potential to destroy, resulting in the loss of property and livelihoods, as well as injury, death and repeated trauma for those who are already vulnerable. However, fire as a hazard has been treated rigidly and un-critically, a model that has influenced how it is perceived by policy makers, first responders, engineers and academics and subsequently approaches to implementing and better understanding fire prevention, mitigation, response and recovery from the impacts of fire.

This article deals with fire, arguing that its case can help imagine what liberation might mean within and for disaster studies. The study argues against dogmatic, outdated, technological and solution-focused perspectives that have constrained how fire and its effects are understood and discuss what disciplinary liberation could mean for the study of fire and its integration within DRR. The study’s approach is based on the DRR Assemblage Theory, which points to fire as an issue at a societal level.

The study explores the themes of fire and liberation through contributions and insights that have emerged through the authors' professional experience in research and practice. It offers an original and timely engagement with disaster studies through the lens of fire, an increasingly pertinent phenomenon for disaster scholars and practitioners alike.

By drawing on the example of fire as a socio-technical-environmental phenomenon, this paper contributes a novel perspective on the intellectual and practical possibilities that can emerge from disciplinary liberation.

This brief is designed to inform disaster risk reduction and management in Philippine jails and prisons. It draws upon research conducted in nine jails and prisons between July 2015 and January 2016. This research included 44 interviews with stakeholders, including inmates and prisoners, and nine focus groups with inmates and prisoners in different regions of the country. The research indicates that natural hazards are one amongst the many threats that inmates and prisoners face in their everyday life. Natural hazards are significant because inmates and prisoners are particularly vulnerable. Inmates' and prisoners' vulnerability stems from a thread of proximate and root causes that range from insalubrious and overcrowded facilities and limited resourcing from the government, to the neoliberal nature of the Philippine state. However, inmates and prisoners are not helpless “victims” in dealing with natural hazards. They display a wide range of skills, resources and knowledge (i.e. capacities) that are grounded in everyday practices and values reflective of the broader Philippine society. This policy brief finally makes some recommendations for strengthening hazard prevention, fostering vulnerability mitigation, enhancing preparedness, and reinforcing disaster management in Philippine jails and prisons. These recommendations emphasise the contributions of a number of stakeholders, including the active role of inmates and prisoners who are the first line of defence in facing disasters in jails and prisons.

Community centers play a socio-economic and urban role of combining different communal necessities, that serve inhabitants, at different neighborhoods in cities. Their role emerged in importance as being a hub for improving and customizing quality of life experiences of the public. This research presents a code-based risk assessment tool for evaluating fire safety measures that can be adapted in the context of community centers. It also provides an exemplary case study to demonstrate its application.

The study identified the factors that render community centers as a high-risk type of facilities in fire events. Various fire codes and standards were reviewed to describe the relevant fire safety measures. A code-based fire risk assessment tool was developed and implemented, through a case study. A set of recommendations were developed to improve the fire safety conditions of the case study facility.

Several violations to fire safety were identified in the case study building. The findings led to identifying a set of recommendations to improve its fire safety conditions.

This research introduced a systematic approach to raise awareness about fire incidences and consequences in community centers, and provides facilities managers with a tool, to assess compliance based on international fire code requirements.

In fire events, community centers are considered as high-risk facilities that may lead to significant losses of human lives and damages to assets. It is significant to study the causes of fire, for ensuring effective prevention and safe operations.

The statistics show that older adults have been major fire victims in high-rise buildings. However, the fire safety building codes in most countries are not inclusive and do not reflect provisions for older adults. The research aims to develop a fire risk assessment index system for older adults living in high-rise residential buildings in India. The study further develops a fire rating system to improve fire safety provisions in high-rise buildings in India.

The paper employs Delphi, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive risk evaluation techniques. It considers 18 in-depth interviews and group discussions with builders, developers, architects, policymakers, and fire safety experts and consultants to develop a fire risk assessment system for older occupants living in high-rise residential buildings in India.

The fire protection systems and fire management systems are not as per the needs of older adults. The egress system components need improvisation considering the challenges of older adults.

The study is limited to older adults living in high-rise residential buildings in the capital city of Gujarat, Ahmedabad.

This study will assist policymakers in developing fire safety standards that are targeted to the needs of older persons living in high-rise residential buildings during a fire evacuation.

While several approaches for measuring fire risk in high-rise residential buildings exist, no such system has been developed specifically for older adults in India.

The study, within the Increasing Resilience of Cultural Heritage (ResCult) project, aims to support civil protection to prevent, lessen and mitigate disasters impacts on cultural heritage using a unique standardised-3D geographical information system (GIS), including both heritage and risk and hazard information.

A top-down approach, starting from existing standards (an INSPIRE extension integrated with other parts from the standardised and shared structure), was completed with a bottom-up integration according to current requirements for disaster prevention procedures and risk analyses. The results were validated and tested in case studies (differentiated concerning the hazard and type of protected heritage) and refined during user forums.

Besides the ensuing reusable database structure, the filling with case studies data underlined the tough challenges and allowed proposing a sample of workflows and possible guidelines. The interfaces are provided to use the obtained knowledge base.

The increasing number of natural disasters could severely damage the cultural heritage, causing permanent damage to movable and immovable assets and tangible and intangible heritage. The study provides an original tool properly relating the (spatial) information regarding cultural heritage and the risk factors in a unique archive as a standard-based European tool to cope with these frequent losses, preventing risk.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive study on building, fire and evacuation, so as to effectively improve the efficiency of building fire evacuation and the management level of fire evacuation site. Make up for the difficulties of BIM technology in effectively connecting building information and fire data.

First, this paper establishes a fire model and an evacuation model based on BIM information. Then, the safety index (SI) is introduced as a comprehensive index, and the IRI is established by integrating the SI function to evaluate the safety of evacuation routes. Based on these two indices, the IRI-based fire evacuation model is established.

This study offers an Improved Risk Index (IRI)-based fire evacuation model, which may achieve effective evacuation in fire scenes. And the model is verified by taking the fire evacuation of a shopping center building as an example.

This paper proposes a fire evacuation principle based on IRI, so that the relevant personnel can comprehensively consider the fire factors and evacuation factors to achieve the optimization of building design, thereby improving the fire safety of buildings.

The extreme nature of fire makes structural fire engineering unique in that the load actions dictating design are intense and neither geographically nor seasonally bound. Simply, fire can break out anywhere, at any time and for any number of reasons. Despite the apparent need, the fire design of structures still relies on expensive fire tests, complex finite element simulations and outdated procedures with little room for innovation. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issues.

This primer highlights the latest state of the art in this area with regard to performance-based design in fire structural engineering. In addition, this short review also presents a series of examples of successful implementation of performance-based fire design of structures from around the world.

A comparison between global efforts clearly shows the advances put forth by European and Oceanian efforts as opposed to the rest of the world. In addition, it can be clearly seen that most performance-based fire designs are related to steel and composite structures.

In one study, this paper presents a concise and global view to performance-based fire design of structures from success stories from around the world.

In this paper the aim is that Aramid/alginate blended nonwoven fabrics were prepared, and the flame retardancy of the blended nonwoven fabrics was studied by thermogravimetric analysis, vertical flame test, limiting oxygen index (LOI) and cone calorimeter test.

The advantages of different fibers can be combined by blending, and the defects may be remedied. The study investigates whether incorporating alginate fibers into aramid fibers can enhance the flame retardancy and reduce the smoke production of prepared aramid/alginate blended nonwoven fabrics.

Thermogravimetric analysis indicated that alginate fibers could effectively inhibit the combustion performance of aramid fibers at a higher temperature zone, leaving more residual chars for heat isolation. And vertical flame test, LOI and cone calorimeter test testified that the incorporation of alginate fibers improved the flame retardancy and fire behaviors. When the ratio of alginate fibers for aramid/alginate blended nonwoven fabrics reached 80%, the incorporation of alginate fibers could notably decreased peak-heat release rate (54%), total heat release (THR) (29%), peak-smoke production rate (93%) and total smoke production (86%). What is more, the lower smoke production rate and lower THR of the blends vastly reduced the risk of secondary injury in fires.

This study proposes to inhibit the flue gas release of aramid fiber and enhance the flame retardant by mixing with alginate fiber, and proposes that alginate fiber can be used as a biological smoke inhibitor, as well as a flame retardant for aramid fiber.

This research paper aims to investigate reinforced concrete (RC) walls' behaviour under fire and identify the thermal and mechanical factors that affect their performance.

A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model is developed to predict the response of RC walls under fire and is validated through experimental tests on RC wall specimens subjected to fire conditions. The numerical model incorporates temperature-dependent properties of the constituent materials. Moreover, the validated model was used in a parametric study to inspect the effect of the fire scenario, reinforcement concrete cover, reinforcement ratio and configuration, and wall thickness on the thermal and structural behaviour of the walls subjected to fire.

The developed 3D FE model successfully predicted the response of experimentally tested RC walls under fire conditions. Results showed that the fire resistance of the walls was highly compromised under hydrocarbon fire. In addition, the minimum wall thickness specified by EC2 may not be sufficient to achieve the desired fire resistance under considered fire scenarios.

There is limited research on the performance of RC walls exposed to fire scenarios. The study contributed to the current state-of-the-art research on the behaviour of RC walls of different concrete types exposed to fire loading, and it also identified the factors affecting the fire resistance of RC walls. This guides the consideration and optimisation of design parameters to improve RC walls performance in the event of a fire.

The fire sector within the United Kingdom has identified a need to further develop their systematic use of academic literature and develop mechanisms to include academic knowledge to inform evidence-based policy and practice. By increasing knowledge exchange between the fire sector and academia, the ability to horizon scan and identify future relevant phenomena of interest to the fire sector will be achieved. Consequently, the evidence base and horizon scanning will increase the specificity of techniques, approaches and practices needed to continually improve the safety of the activities completed within the firefighting occupation, and it will also provide priority areas for investment and increase firefighter safety.

This technical paper primarily features an initial scoping review of academic and grey literature and an operational incident data review. This was completed to provide an initial and updated review of disciplines and areas of academia that are actively engaged in research relevant to the fire and rescue service. Consequently, this method sought to identify and examine the various disciplines of academia involved in fire research. This paper then uses that outcome to suggest a model of multidisciplinarity to inform the fire sector.

As a result of the scoping review, each academic discipline was identified and an initial review developed a predetermined set of key search terms. This was established through identifying the most frequently used fire-related terms within each discipline. This allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the breadth of activity and depth of complexity of fire related research within each discipline and an indicative set of key search terms to be developed. Recommendations are formulated to suggest next steps to routinely incorporate the academic knowledge base in the learning process of the fire and rescue services in the United Kingdom.

This paper provides an initial scoping map of academic literature and disciplines relevant to activities completed in the UK fire sector, which can be used to further develop the evidence base to inform the fire and rescue service of the United Kingdom. It also outlines possible mechanisms and a model to systematically facilitate knowledge exchange between academia and the fire sector by which knowledge exchange could further support the development of evidence-based policy and practice. The broad range of benefits of collaboration between the fire and rescue service and academia are explored.

This paper provides clear evidence as to why fire related research should have an increased priority status to inform the national fire and rescue services learning process and evidence for national policy and guidance development within the UK fire and rescue service. Additionally, recommendations are made to support the consideration of academic evidence in the systematic sector wide learning process.

Previously, the UK fire and rescue service had limited coordinated strategic engagement with academic disciplines to further develop their learning processes in order to produce an evidence base, which is cognisant of academic research to inform practice and guidance. This paper begins the narrowing of that gap by categorising academic literature relevant to fire research into clear disciplines, mapping these to an updated breadth of current activities undertaken by the fire and rescue service across the United Kingdom. The process also details a pilot of the proposed model to support knowledge exchange by producing an academically evidence-based submission to the National Fire Chiefs Council organisational learning process.