Organisations need to plan how they will react to emergencies so that a safe outcome can be assured. Planning allows an agreed approach to be developed, recorded, communicated and practised. It allows problems to be discussed and worked through so that confusion and uncertainty are reduced in a real emergency situation. This section provides a great deal of information to enable emergency egress plans to be drawn up for people with disabilities. It looks at how people react in an emergency situation, and indicates how the presence of a disability can affect that reaction. The benefits of a risk assessment approach are discussed, as is the importance of consultation with all stakeholders.
This section outlines the basic principles used when the means of escape from buildings is designed. It provides information on the various aspects of an emergency escape system from warning and wayfinding, through moving horizontally to a place of refuge, to vertical movement to a place of safety.
Information is also given on particular aspects of safe egress for people with disabilities in a range of building types.
This section of the document will assist with meeting the following aims:
In an emergency such as a fire, all building users are put in an unfamiliar situation that can be, in extreme cases, very frightening and potentially life threatening. In dealing with the problem of ensuring that people are able to evacuate in safety, building design codes take into account a whole range of issues such as:
The design codes attempt to tailor guidance and requirements to match a diverse range of building types and occupancies, but it is difficult to cover all eventualities. While design codes deal adequately with many buildings, there are others that do not fit neatly into the assumptions made about layout, use or occupancy. With the provision of access for people with disabilities to more and more buildings, there is a growing need to give consideration to the resulting egress requirements.
Much is now known about how people react in emergencies. For example, it is accepted that people prefer to use familiar routes and exits in an emergency and will often ignore near-by emergency exits to go out by the way they entered. The level of familiarity that a person has with the building layout can have an impact on their ability to escape.
Other factors that can influence the time it takes for escape in an emergency include:
Figure 2 below represents a timeline for an emergency, which is often used to explain the stages of human behaviour alongside the development of a fire. In an emergency evacuation, the aim is to have the time taken for everyone to safely leave the building less than the time for environmental or structural conditions in the building to become untenable. The time taken to evacuate once the alarm is raised is made up of pre-movement and movement time. The pre-movement time is broken down into recognition time and response time. The movement time is the time taken to travel to safety.
Recognition time is the period from when the alarm is raised until people understand that there is a potentially threatening situation. During this time, people are gathering information from alarm signals, clues such as smoke, flame or unusual sounds, or from the reactions of others. Response time is spent by people deciding on the appropriate action to take to deal with the emergency and can often include movement that is not actually escaping, such as locating family members and gathering up belongings.
When emergency egress is viewed in these terms, it becomes evident that the population of a building at any one time will have a range of characteristics and abilities that will affect individual evacuation times. To design a building that provides safe egress for all means basing the evacuation time on the person who will take the longest time to escape. Special consideration has to be given therefore to the needs of people with disabilities when designing and planning for emergency evacuation.
People have disabilities of various types and of varying levels of severity. These disabilities can take the form of:
People can sometimes have a combination of these types of disabilities. The presence of a disability can have a very significant impact on the time it takes for someone to escape in an emergency. The time needed to escape on the ASET timeline in Figure 2 above will potentially be extended, and an understanding of how this could arise will help planners to anticipate the likely effects.
Although a mobility impairment will have the greatest impact on movement time, the inability for people to quickly investigate unexplained clues could lead to longer recognition times. For some disabilities, it may be impossible for any unaided movement to take place whatsoever.
The inability to hear a fire alarm signal or other warning, either completely or clearly, is very likely to lengthen recognition time. Similarly, if vision is impaired, information about a developing threat or other people's reactions will be missed leading to delayed recognition of the situation.
A cognitive impairment may leave a person unable to interpret a warning correctly or quickly enough leading to no, or slow, recognition. A further factor to consider is the impact of warning signals such as sounders and strobes on people where such stimuli could cause a reaction or event such as a seizure.
Response time is characterised by people taking actions that cannot be considered as escaping. In addition to the examples given, such actions might include raising the alarm, fire fighting, checking on others or getting dressed prior to escaping. A mobility impairment could easily reduce the speed of these responses for individuals or make it impossible for them to respond at all.
Given that response time is spent deciding on the appropriate action to take, the fact that sensory impairment might reduce the means available to gather information makes it very likely that more time will be taken before escaping, or that the action taken will not be the best option. Response time is likely to be extended as a result.
A cognitive impairment may leave a person unable to interpret the information available about the evolving emergency situation and mean that the action taken is inappropriate. Response times will be longer and no appropriate response may result.
For simplicity, most design codes split movement, or travel distance as it is commonly described, into horizontal and vertical components. Horizontal movement describes movement on the same level, such as within the floor on which the person is located at the time of the evacuation. Vertical movement refers to situations where it is necessary to change levels, between floors for example, when escaping.
A mobility impairment can have a great impact on movement time. Fire safety design codes tend to be based around the assumption that all people in an emergency evacuation are able to move independently and all move at the same speed - that of a fit and fully mobile adult. It stands to reason, however, that not all people will fit into this assumption. It is only to be expected that some people will not be able to move independently and that some will have a range of movement abilities that will make their movements much slower than for others. In some instances, depending on what activity they are engaged in at the time, users of wheelchairs may have to transfer into their chairs prior to moving. Some might need to wait for a carer to assist and then wheel them to safety. There will, in many cases, be doors fitted with automatic closers to negotiate, adding to the time taken to escape. Other situations will exist where people are confined to bed such as in hospital wards or residential homes. Movement in these cases might require medical equipment to be transported at the same time.
Aside from the speed of movement of those with mobility impairments, it is possible that queuing will occur if, for example, a wheelchair user is moving ahead of a group of other people. The flow rate for the evacuation will reduce accordingly if there is insufficient room for people to pass. This could be a particular problem in narrow corridors or at obstructions such as doorways. Walking aids such as rollators or crutches take up additional space that is not generally considered in the models used to predict the flow rate of people escaping from buildings.
Vertical movement presents particular problems for people with disabilities. It is common practice for passenger lifts not to be used in emergency evacuations and, in most cases, evacuation plans exclude them. This is because of the danger of a power failure trapping people in the lift, of the lift being inadvertently called to the floor where the incident is located or because the lift will not always be enclosed in fire resisting construction. Further details of the design and use of evacuation lifts are given in Section 5.10.
In many buildings, lifts are the only method for people with mobility impairments to move between floors. Access legislation is resulting in the installation of passenger or platform lifts in more and more buildings. The problem created for evacuation is obvious and the solution usually adopted in fire safety design is to provide safe areas, sometimes known as refuges, where people can wait for assistance. More detail on the design of refuges is included in Section 5.9 Refuges. Whilst waiting, movement stops and the overall time taken to escape mounts. Often, the only way for wheelchair users to move between floors is to abandon their chairs and be carried or otherwise assisted along the stair. Again, this takes time and adds to the overall escape time. Another factor with mobility impairment is the knock-on effect that can occur when slowly moving evacuees cause the formation of bottlenecks and queues of other occupants. It follows, therefore, that organisations must anticipate the needs of people with disabilities in their emergency evacuation policies, planning, training and practicing.
Other difficulties faced by those with mobility impairments include the opening of fire doors against the resistance of door closers or pressurisation systems, and the negotiation of doors which, whilst held open magnetically in normal circumstances, are released to close in the event of a fire to prevent the passage of smoke and flame. Another factor for some is the difficulty of moving safely in a closely packed crowd when strength and stability levels are reduced. Others will find it difficult to travel even relatively short distances without resting. Wayfinding is an important issue for people escaping in an emergency situation. Time spent locating exits and finding the appropriate route to take can add significantly to the overall escape time. A vision impairment would normally be expected to make it more difficult for someone to identify exits and follow exit signage and, coupled with the difficulty of identifying the location of a fire, the recognition and travel times can often be extended.
For many people with vision impairments the move into unfamiliar terrain, such as an escape route never used before, will cause great stress and result in a slowing down of movement. It will also affect a person's ability to observe and follow the escape behaviour of others.
A hearing impairment could also add to the time taken to escape, not least if it makes it difficult to understand and react to the instructions of others such as fire wardens. In some circumstances, for example where an individual with a vision impairment is very familiar with their surroundings, the difficulties of low light levels and smoke obscuration can become less of an encumbrance than for a person without a vision impairment.
Efficient use of time in the movement phase of an emergency evacuation requires information to be processed quickly. A cognitive impairment may slow or prevent the assimilation and interpretation of this information, with a resulting increase in the overall time taken to escape.
From the above it is clear that special consideration of egress requirements is needed to take account of the needs of people with disabilities. In many cases, disabilities are "hidden" and it will not be obvious at the time that there is a need for extra steps to be taken.
The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act (2005) places obligations on employers to ensure that employees are safe when at work. The Act makes specific reference to emergency egress. The legislation requires hazards and the resulting risks to be identified within workplaces, to ensure that appropriate control measures are taken to mitigate the effects on those who would be exposed to the risk.
This risk assessment approach is very useful for those responsible for managing emergency egress and is applicable when planning for all users of buildings, not just employees.
An assessment of the risks to people with disabilities who are known to use the building, or who could be anticipated to be there will determine the physical measures and management strategies that are required to ensure adequate means of egress are maintained.
An important aspect of the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work legislation is the Safety Statement, which employers are required to prepare.
The Safety Statement specifies the manner in which the safety, health or welfare of employees at the place of work will be secured. It is intended:
These aims are exactly those that an organisation will wish to achieve in their system for managing emergency evacuation. It makes sense to use the Safety Statement as a means to integrate emergency egress planning for all staff, visitors and other users of the building.
The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) guidance document referred to in Section 2.2 and used to define the structure of this document outlines an appropriate system for managing emergency evacuation.
The HSA has a considerable amount of further information on assessing and managing risk available on its website. Readers of this guide are advised to visit the Health and Safety Authority's website www.hsa.ie for additional information.
Risk assessments need to be continually reviewed and must reflect changes in the physical environment as well as changes in people, procedures and legislation.
The review and auditing process, to ensure that all measures required to protect people with disabilities and others are adequate, is an essential part of managing emergency egress.
A risk assessment checklist is included in Appendix 3. This checklist can be used to develop a safety strategy that is appropriate to the needs of people with disabilities.
It is by no means exhaustive in its content and those assessing the risks to people with disabilities in the event of an emergency evacuation should use it as a guide, adding any other issues that emerge.
For ease of use, the checklist has been divided into separate sections headed:
An important part of preparing emergency plans and procedures that meet the needs of people with disabilities is to consult with those who are directly affected.
In many circumstances it will be easy to identify those who need to be consulted, such as when considering the needs of employees with disabilities. In such cases, direct consultation will ensure that management understands clearly what needs to be put in place to ensure the employees safety, and the employee will be aware of the arrangements and have an increased level of confidence about them. This is an integral part of preparing a Personal Emergency Egress Plan.
Other groups, such as visitors and the general public, who use buildings are more difficult to consult directly. The needs of these people will have to be anticipated when planning for emergencies and it is important that the suitability of the arrangements put in place is checked. This can be achieved by consulting with disability organisations who represent particular groups of people with disabilities. In some cases, it might be necessary to consult with medical or occupational health professionals, particularly when planning for people with severe disabilities.
Consultation will also be required with those members of staff who will be expected to implement the emergency procedures. This may involve negotiation with staff representatives.
The NDA publication Ask Me - Guidelines for Effective Consultation with People with Disabilities provides advice and guidance on how to consult with people with disabilities.
At a technical level, when drawing up emergency evacuation plans and procedures, it might be helpful to consult with the Fire and Rescue Service who would respond to a call out to the building concerned. It is important to ensure that the evacuation procedures put in place by the building management will not conflict with the fire fighting procedures that the fire service will adopt when they arrive on site.
If the building being dealt with is in multiple occupation or is rented from a landlord, it is likely that the egress plan for one occupant will interact with those of others. It is important that all parties are consulted at an early stage.
When buildings are constructed, legislation ensures that provision for means of escape in the event of fire is incorporated into the structure. Although the focus is on fire safety, the guidance used ensures people will be able to escape quickly in any emergency. The legislation is inclusive of people with disabilities.
Part B of the Building Regulations sets out the functional requirements for fire safety under the broad headings of:
Technical Guidance Document (TGD) B is applicable to most building types and is provided as a guide to the minimum standards that will meet the requirements of the Building Regulations.
TGD B does not give much direct guidance on egress for people with disabilities but instead refers to BS5588-8: 1999 'Code of Practice for Means of Escape for Disabled People'. The basic design principles contained in BS 5588-8 are for people with disabilities to be able to move horizontally to a place of refuge where they can wait for assistance with the vertical part of their escape to a place of safety. It should be noted that this code of practice makes no recommendations requiring the provision of refuge spaces in "small" premises consisting only of a basement, ground and first floor with no floor area over 280m². Good practice, however, would be to always provide a sufficiently sized refuge space, or an alternative solution, when lift access is provided, irrespective of whether the lift access is a statutory requirement or not.
The guidance in BS5588 also covers, to some degree, the features needed in warning and alarm systems to help those with hearing impairments and makes recommendations for assisting people with vision impairments.
A number of sources of further information on emergency egress for people with disabilities, which reflect international research and good practice, have been included in the appendices to this guide. One document that will be of interest to those with responsibility for designing for egress is DD9999: 2005 'Code of Practice for Fire Safety in the Design, Construction and Use of Buildings'. This document is produced by BSI as a "Draft for Development" and is intended to replace the BS5588 series in due course. It reflects more recent thinking on egress for those with disabilities and could be used as an alternative to BS5588-8, with agreement of the relevant enforcing authorities.
The following sections look at each stage of the emergency escape process in some detail under the following headings:
In the event of an emergency, some form of warning system is required to alert people throughout the building. The alarm will either be raised by an individual who becomes aware of the incident or by automatic detection in the case of a fire.
Conventional alarm systems may not always meet the needs of people with disabilities, both from the perspective of triggering the alarm to warn others and in terms of recognising a warning given.
In situations where the alarm system is manual, i.e. relying on the actions of a person to activate it, it is necessary to consider the number, height and location of break glass call points to ensure that someone with a disability can quickly and easily locate and reach them. This will necessitate an assessment of the likelihood that someone with a disability will be expected to activate the fire alarm. Consequently, it may require the inclusion of additional features to the fire alarm system such as additional call points, lowering of call points or the use of other means of activation such as ceiling cord switches. The use of automatic fire detection will provide a backup to manually raising the alarm. Such systems are increasingly common in public buildings.
Hearing and recognising the alarm is a problem for those with hearing impairments. In general, given the sound levels generated by a fire alarm, people with impaired hearing will usually either be able to make out the alarm signal or be alerted by the actions of other occupants. This will not be the case for everyone and consideration must be given to other ways of raising the alarm including visual alarms, paging system, vibrating devices and tailoring of the sound frequencies delivered.
When selecting the appropriate system, consideration should to be given to other impacts that the alarm could have for people with disabilities. These include risks to persons with epilepsy through to use of flashing beacons, causing inner ear discomfort or making normal communication impossible due to high levels of background alarm. Specialist advice should be sought on the most suitable location and type of sounder.
Vibrating alert systems are available which take the form of a local area paging system linked to the fire alarm system through an interface. Activation of the fire alarm system will trigger any paging devices within range of the transmitter. Depending on the system installed, as well as vibrating, a visual message can be displayed on the device screen and an intense audible tone can be emitted.
The system is therefore capable of alerting those with moderate to severe hearing impairments and can offer the added advantage of making users identifiable to staff members through the audible tone. The system will need to have battery backup and fault monitoring to the same standard as the fire alarm system. In large buildings, multiple transmitters may be required to ensure full coverage. Some systems allow the devices to be used for general paging, through multiple channels controlled by software installed on a linked PC.
The use of a vibrating pager alert system requires good management systems to identify those who need to carry pagers, ensure they are trained in their use, and to manage the signing in and out of the units. Maintenance of the units is also important, particularly with regard to ensuring they are fully charged. The portable nature of the pagers means that this can be a relatively cost-effective way to cover all areas of a building.
Such systems tend to be easier to manage in buildings such as offices where those who could benefit are known. Buildings open to the public are more difficult to manage but the system can still work effectively. Problems to be overcome are the potential for pagers to go missing and the uncertainty about how many are required to be available to cope with demand.
Other forms of vibrating alert available are able to wake those sleeping through the use of a pad that is placed under the pillow. Some systems allow the standard paging device to be docked in a cradle at night time. Activation of the alarm triggers the vibrating pillow pad and flashes a strobe light. Some systems allow the cradle to be portable meaning that those with hearing impairments are not restricted to using particular rooms. These systems are particularly suited to hotels or student accommodation.
As new technologies develop, it may be possible to have paging systems that can provide information on people's location within a building.
A drawback to the use of paging systems is the fact that their use requires the people with hearing impairments to identify themselves and go through a registration process not applicable to those without a hearing impairment.
Vibrating paging systems for use as fire alarm warning systems should comply with the relevant parts of BS5839-1: 2002 and EN54 .
It is not likely that simply locating a strobe beside each sounder will give full coverage. Consideration is required of particular room layouts, the directions in which people are likely to face and the presence of fixtures, fittings and furniture within rooms.
A further factor to consider if strobe beacons are to be used is the possibility of a negative reaction to the pulsating light in those with disabilities such as epilepsy. Care needs to be taken to ensure that the strobe frequency chosen is satisfactory. Frequencies of 5 hertz and above are to be avoided as the range of frequencies from 5 to 30 hertz is generally considered most likely to trigger a reaction. It is recommended by epilepsy organisations that strobes operate at a frequency of 2 to 4 hertz and be synchronised so that the frequency is not increased in spaces with multiple units.
Further guidance on visual alarms can be found in BS5839-1: 2002 - Section 2, Clauses 17 and 18.
Wayfinding in an emergency evacuation is a major problem for everyone who is unfamiliar with the building layout. As most escape routes tend to be located in areas not in normal everyday use, the presence of suitable escape signage is essential. By their very nature, many escape routes will appear off limits during normal use of the building and tend to be rejected by users in the event of fire. The obvious solution is to make escape routes a normal means of access where possible.
Wayfinding is a research subject for a number of institutions internationally, with one of note being the Research Group for Inclusive Environments at the University of Reading. Areas being researched include the legibility and conspicousness of signage through to the behaviour of people in smoke-filled environments. For further information please refer to www.extra.rdg.ac.uk/ie
The problems are compounded for people with vision impairments such as macular degeneration or cataracts. One aid for those with vision impairment is the use of photo-luminescent wayfinding guidance systems. These systems typically make use of continuous strips of photo-luminescent material located in the floor covering or at low levels on walls to indicate the direction to the nearest emergency exit. The strips are brightly coloured and highly conspicuous in normally lit situations and remain visible in low light conditions by emitting light themselves. The photo-luminescent material used absorbs energy from the natural or artificial lighting, stores it and re-emits it as light. The systems are of benefit to all building users and are of real benefit for evacuation along routes that are partially smoke logged. The idea of low level directional indication of exits has a long history in the aviation industry but is not commonly used in buildings as yet.
Another wayfinding aid is the use of handrails on horizontal circulation routes, commonly provided in hospitals and other healthcare buildings, which, apart from providing support to users, also provide assurance on escape routes within buildings.
Irrespective of their location, it is important that handrails are colour contrasted against their background to ensure that they are easier for people with vision impairments to see, even in normal lighting conditions. It is possible to use the handrails in a building to convey information to people with vision impairments through the use of raised detail. This information can signify the floor level, the direction for escape or the location of refuge areas.
The level of lighting to escape routes is very important for those with vision impairments, and should be of the highest standard possible. Lighting will, at different times, be provided through daylight, normal artificial lighting and emergency escape lighting.
The most critical will be that provided by emergency escape lighting in the event of a power failure to the building. Guidance is available in Building Regulations on the areas and types of building requiring emergency lighting. However, consideration should always be given to the provision of emergency lighting to accommodate people with vision impairments. The required luminance level at the floor of defined escape routes is 0.5 lux and 1.0 lux in open areas of accommodation or undefined escape routes, as they are known. Emergency lighting systems are required to achieve this level of luminance within five seconds of a power failure or the failure of a lighting circuit, which allows for the time taken by fluorescent tubes to warm up. Generally, lighting levels at head height will be at a higher value than at floor level as the light source is usually located at ceiling level. Further information on emergency lighting systems is available in IS3217: 1989 and BS EN1838: 1999.
It should be noted that, over time, the efficiency of light fittings degrades and the lighting level of a newly installed system should be designed well in excess of the minimum recommended lux levels in IS3217.
The legibility and conspicuousness of escape signage is very important. This can be improved by relatively simple measures such as using illuminated exit signs and removing glare and clutter due to other signage for other purposes such as advertising. The requirement for the graphic design of signage is covered by European Council Directive 92/58/EEC. The design of escape signage provides a degree of uniformity for Irish citizens as well as visitors from other countries. Guidance on the graphic design, size and location of escape signage can be found in BS5499 Parts 1, 4 and 5. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland have produced information on signage strategy and should be referred to for further guidance (see www.ncbi.ie).. Building owners do have a choice on the type of illumination they provide for escape signage. Signs can be internally or externally illuminated, or in some cases photo-luminescent.
Research is available from the University of Reading which demonstrates that the latest generation of light emitting diode (LED) illuminated signs can improve the legibility and conspicuousness for those with vision impairments. LED signs tend to be more expensive to install but offer lower power consumption and extended lamp life, which will have ongoing maintenance benefits.
In addition to the luminance levels of signage, the provision of tactile information on signs can be of considerable benefit to people with vision impairments. This is particularly the case where a person with a vision impairment might have to wait within a refuge space and need information about the arrangements for egress from the location.
Improving the luminance of escape signage is easy to do technically and should be a measure implemented through planned maintenance or as part of a building upgrade or refurbishment. Maximum and minimum luminance levels of signage are given as 300 cd/m² and 15 cd/m² respectively in IS413: 1989 but, as with emergency lighting systems, consideration has to be given to the reduction in lighting levels over time.
The use of directional sound is a developing technology with many applications, one of which is in assisting with wayfinding in emergency evacuations. Directional sound is essentially broadband, multi-frequency sound that is easily and quickly located by the human ear. Standard alarm systems give no information on the location of exits, but directional sound systems use sounders located at strategic points which emit rapid bursts of broadband sound. The sounds can be tailored to identify particular building features such as stairs or emergency exits and indicate the vertical direction to be taken on stairways.
Tests have shown that the time taken to locate exits is dramatically reduced when directional sound is used. The technology is of particular benefit to those with vision impairments as it adds an extra layer of information received aurally.
The main drawback with the system is one of familiarity. Fire alarm signals are universally recognised and understood but the use of directional sound systems is not yet widespread enough to be sure that building users would know how to react without individual training. For this reason, its use would perhaps best suit buildings where people can be made familiar with the method of operation.
Ideally, horizontal circulation within buildings will be level with suitable ramps and complementary steps where level circulation is not possible due to building and site constraints.
With new buildings, level approach to and within the internal spaces is delivered through application of Part M of the Building Regulations. Part M is a minimum standard and more comprehensive guidance is available from other international publications such as BS8300.
In the event of an emergency evacuation, people with disabilities may not be able to avail of the circulation routes designed for access and, consequently, escape routes need to be designed so that they are suitable for all of the building's occupants.
Horizontal movement can be difficult for those who are wheelchair users, people with arthritis, expectant mothers and parents using prams.
To facilitate unrestricted egress:
As many people with disabilities are unable to use stairs unassisted, it is necessary to ensure that they can stay in a safe location until help arrives. A common way to facilitate this need is through the provision of safe areas within protected stair enclosures. This is not always possible and may not always be desirable, particularly when dealing with existing buildings where space in the stairs is limited or where larger numbers of people who require assistance to escape are anticipated.
The use of refuge areas will often require a person with a disability to wait whilst others escape past them. It should be realised that people can become fearful and concerned about being left behind. It is essential that the use of refuges is discussed fully in advance with those who might need to use them. This will need to be discussed with employees as part of the drawing up of Personal Emergency Egress Plans. Where people are unfamiliar with the use of refuge spaces or the spaces' locations in a building, the intervention of staff will be necessary to provide direction and reassurance. It may also be necessary for staff to remain with those waiting in refuge areas to assist with the use of communication systems or provide general support.
Refuges should be provided so that people with mobility difficulties are not placed at a greater risk from fire than other occupants. This will usually require an assessment of the numbers of people likely to require the use of a refuge space and assistance with vertical evacuation of the building. Inherent in this assessment is the availability and suitability of appointed staff who can provide assistance, their general fitness, health and their ability to re-enter the building as necessary in order to render further assistance, which is unrealistic even in low-rise buildings of three or more storeys above ground level.
As a minimum requirement refuges should have the following features:
An alternative to the location of refuge spaces within stair enclosures, which may be useful in existing buildings or for larger numbers, is the use of fire resisting accommodation adjacent to protected stairs as refuge space. To be suitable, such accommodation should have the same period of fire resistance as the protected stairs and have direct access to the stairs or to a lift suitable for evacuation.
A further option could be to subdivide a room or storey into separate fire resisting compartments, each of which has at least one independent escape route and adequate provision to allow movement between compartments. Often this will necessitate the provision of more than one intercommunicating door between the compartments to ensure that a route is always available. This approach is often used in healthcare premises where the evacuation of patients using stairs is even more difficult. Where one of these alternative approaches is used, careful consideration has to be given to the location of two-way communicating equipment and evacuation aids.
Current standards only require a minimum number of refuge spaces, but it is clear that this provision could be inadequate for many buildings where the potential for those requiring assistance to escape exceeds the number of refuges provided.
This will often be the case in publicly accessible buildings where it might be appropriate to introduce cellular areas of fire resisting construction so that it becomes possible for people with disabilities to progressively move away from the risk of fire whilst allowing groups such as families to remain together. This would not generally be feasible within the confines of a 1400 x 900mm refuge space.
For example, consider the potential for three wheelchair users on the upper storey of a building that is provided with two escape stairs and only two refuges. This has the potential to leave someone in a vulnerable and potentially dangerous situation. Limiting the number of wheelchair users to two on the upper storey would not be acceptable in access terms and might not achieve a satisfactory solution anyway as the route to one of the escape stairs could be impassable due to smoke or other untenable conditions. In such a situation, a solution would be to go beyond the minimum standards and provide either larger or additional refuge spaces throughout a property.
The nature of the disability, the number of people with disabilities and their position within the building are critical issues requiring careful consideration both at design stage and when the premises are occupied. This is particularly the case when people with disabilities are able to access and occupy above-ground spaces within buildings, most usually the case when buildings are accessible to the public.
In "open" premises where there is little or no control over access, the designer and management should make provision for the maximum, rather than the minimum, number of people with disabilities that prohibit the unaided use of stairs within buildings and provide sufficient refuge space to meet anticipated needs.
In other circumstances, where there is a high degree of control at the access point to a building, such as in a school or office accommodation, it may be possible to restrict the number of people who require assistance on an upper storey, where there is inadequate provision of suitable refuge space.
Whichever option for refuge is used, the importance of good management procedures and staff training must be emphasised.
Vertical circulation within the building should be no more difficult for people with disabilities than for other users. In access terms, the use of passenger lifts removes barriers to vertical movement. In a fire condition, however, where suitably designed evacuation lifts are not provided, this aspiration is unrealistic and consequently refuges need to be provided to facilitate the escape of people requiring assistance from the upper or lower storeys of a building. On ground-floor accommodation, where the egress from the building is not level with the external surface, it may also be necessary to provide refuge spaces external to the building enclosure. This will also be the case on upper storeys where external fire escapes are utilised.
The best means of ensuring that vertical movement is possible for the evacuation of people with disabilities is to provide lifts suitable for evacuation use. Detail of the requirements for evacuation lifts are given later in this section. The benefits of allowing a person with disabilities to exit a building independently are to simplify egress procedures for them and to offer such users equal independence with others.
As buildings are adapted to make them accessible, and lifts are installed to provide access to storeys above or below the entrance level, it makes good sense to upgrade the standard to that of an evacuation lift. This approach means that access and egress issues are dealt with simultaneously, and the reliance on assisted evacuation is reduced.
Currently, new buildings require a single stair, suitable for use by people with disabilities, affording access to and between the various floor levels within a building. In circumstances where a lift is provided, these requirements are diminished in respect of the rise, going, stair profile and overall height of rise between landings. In many circumstances, the stair provided for access may not be intended for use in the event of fire. The requirements for access and egress differ in their extent and it should not be assumed that stairs provided for access will automatically meet egress needs.
It is recommended that all stairs designed for evacuation purposes should fully meet the recommendations of Technical Guidance Document M or BS8300 for access stairs, unless the building is provided with a suitable number of evacuation lifts and the provision of means of escape for those with mobility impairments is sufficiently robust that the need for such stair design can be discounted.
Generally stairs on escape routes should be designed with a closed riser of a suitable profile with a maximum rise of 170mm and a minimum going of 250mm. Intermediate landings should be provided so that the maximum rise of any flight does not exceed 1,800mm. The handrails should have a contrasting colour to the walls, with the handrail design as described in 'Building For Everyone' (2002) Section 6.7.2 and provided as a continuous handrail to both sides of the stairs. Stair nosings should be non slip and contrasted to the tread finish, with the first and last nosings having a contrasted colour to the remainder. Spiral and helical stairs are not generally considered suitable for escape by people with mobility impairments.
For those who are non-ambulant, the presence of lifts in buildings allows them the same level of access as others. Once the fire alarm system is sounded, these occupants are effectively trapped on whichever floor they have travelled to, as the majority of lifts are not suitable for use in an emergency evacuation.
Evacuation lifts are designed to continue operating in the event of a fire and have special design features to ensure safety.
In some buildings, it might be possible to incorporate evacuation lifts, thereby affording unassisted escape in the event of fire. This could be accommodated at either original design stage or during refurbishment. It should be noted that it is the Office of Public Works' policy to incorporate evacuation lifts in all future new buildings. In some new buildings and also in older buildings, the provision of an evacuation lift might be impracticable and suitable evacuation strategies utilising trained members of staff providing physical assistance are required. Appropriate manual handling risk assessments should, obviously, be implemented if this is part of an egress policy.
It should be noted that, even if an evacuation lift is provided, refuge spaces are still required. However, these should open directly onto or be contained within the lift lobby space.
Evacuation lifts, facilitating the management of evacuation of occupants with a mobility impairment from a building, are clearly a more desirable option where available.
The comparative additional cost of the features required for an evacuation or fire-fighting lift will be relatively minor in a building of more than two to three storeys, particularly where alternative power supplies are being provided for other systems. Compared to the alternative of assisted escape downstairs, evacuation lifts provide the most robust and effective solution for evacuation of people with disabilities. In particular, evacuation lifts allow many people with disabilities to evacuate a building independently and with dignity, eliminating any dependence on colleagues for assistance.
Assisted escape down stairs can cause problems due to:
It should be noted, however, that careful consideration is required before utilising an evacuation lift in a fire condition. It is recommended that evacuation lifts should only open onto protected lobbies enclosed with at least 30 minutes fire resisting construction, with 30 minute fire resisting self-closing fire doors, fitted with cold smoke seals.
The design philosophy for fire fighting lifts is somewhat more complex than for evacuation lifts, with their operation in a fire scenario being very much orientated around the specific needs of fire fighters. The use of fire fighting lifts might be possible in the early stages of an evacuation in some circumstances, however their use and operational constraints need to be fully understood by designated users as they are designed not to be available for general use when the fire alarm is activated, with the call points on all landings becoming isolated. If permitted for evacuation of basement or upper storeys, their management and use should be discussed and agreed with the Fire and Rescue Service as part of the emergency evacuation plan. Their use will, in any case, only be possible prior to the arrival of the Fire and Rescue Service at the building.
In exceptional circumstances, the use of passenger lifts, platform lifts and stair lifts might be considered appropriate. However, this should not be permitted without undertaking a thorough risk assessment by a competent person. The competent person will require a clear understanding of the active and passive systems incorporated into the building design, together with a clear knowledge of the specific impairment of any individual proposing to use such equipment. It is evident, therefore, that the use of lifts not specifically designed for use in fire conditions will require a building- and person-specific assessment, otherwise their availability and use should be discounted.
Guidance on evacuation lifts is contained in BS5588-8: 1999 - Section 11.
Such an assessment should include, but not be limited to:
The use to which a particular building is put can result in a particular emergency egress strategy being required. For example, buildings used for the treatment of people with illnesses, such as hospitals, will have completely different egress needs and characteristics to office buildings. This section provides some advice on egress strategies for a number of common public building types. These are:
Each of these building types is discussed in turn below.
Included in this building category are:
Health service buildings will have a higher proportion of occupants requiring assisted evacuation than any other building use. As a result, the general design guidance used for such buildings takes the needs of people with disabilities into account, and disability issues are accommodated within the more general escape provisions. In addition, patients could require the continued use of equipment, such as monitors and respirators during, and for some time after, an evacuation. Clearly, many of the occupants will be at significantly elevated risk if evacuated to the external air in cold or inclement weather conditions and consequently the preferred evacuation strategy is progressive horizontal evacuation between fire compartments, previously referred to as zoned evacuation.
It is not intended to reiterate the guidance contained in Firecode, the design guides for hospitals and residential care buildings produced by the Department of Health in the UK, but merely to give a flavour of the underlying philosophy for the evacuation of these type of premises.
The principles utilised in the evacuation of healthcare buildings tend to incorporate all of the aforementioned guidance and good practice, namely:
These buildings are required to have high levels of fire resisting construction between floor levels, with every floor being capable of acting as a fire compartment. In addition, floor areas are further compartmented to a maximum size dependant on the height of the floor and the type of healthcare being provided.
These patient care areas are again divided into smaller fire resisting zones, known as sub-compartments, usually having a reduced period of fire resistance to that of the larger compartment. Central to the design concept is the ability to move from an affected fire-resisting zone to an adjoining unaffected zone, thereby requiring sub-compartments to have sufficient capacity to accommodate the occupants from an adjoining zone. The height of the building will often dictate if it is necessary to have the ability to move to more than one adjoining zone, i.e. to be able to choose the direction of escape.
Within this context of fire resistant cellular design, staff/patient ratios and a philosophy for assisted evacuation are also enshrined. As there is an imperative to reduce pre-movement times to a minimum, heavy reliance is placed on automatic fire detection and staff actions. Training and evacuation drills are therefore essential. In such circumstances, it is obviously more appropriate for staff members to role play on behalf of patients. However, more active patients may be willing and capable of participating.
In recent years, a shortfall of available nursing staff has resulted in an increase in personnel being recruited from overseas, with a resultant potential for problems arising from communication and language difficulties. Training is essential to ensure that all staff are able to fulfil their role in the evacuation plan.
The physical elements of hospital buildings, as with many heavily used building types, tend to be subjected to abuse. As new technology is installed or maintenance work carried out, fire resistance and compartmentation can often be interfered with. With the importance placed on fire resistance between zones in evacuation strategies for this building type, it is essential that the structure is maintained in good order, particularly those elements not generally seen such as in voids above ceilings. To this end, in order for the escape philosophy to succeed, it is vital that fire resisting zones, compartments and sub-compartments are clearly identified, records maintained and breaches prohibited. Any adjustment in the layout of the floor area may require a consequential adjustment of the fire systems, which often lie hidden within the building structure.
Included in this building category are:
These type of premises, particularly schools for younger students, are typically off limits to the general public, with the disposition of disabled staff and pupils being less of an unknown than for other types of public access buildings. General means of escape provisions, together with structural fire precautions, impose limits on the maximum floor area within a compartment to around 800m2;. These design constraints both reduce the level of risk and facilitate the concept of progressive horizontal evacuation more easily than for many other building categories. Coupled with occupant characteristics of discipline and strong focus on teaching staff, these buildings are comparatively straightforward to design and manage around occupants with disabilities.
In a risk assessed approach in existing premises, it might be possible to identify the most suitable location(s) for use by those with mobility impairments, ideally at ground level. These rooms could be used to meet the needs of particular staff or students in lieu of classroom rotation, which is more customary. This principle, of course, will not be so easily applied in circumstances where specialist equipment, such as required in laboratories, IT suites and workshops, is provided or where a staff member requires access to a staff room. In such circumstances, a similar risk assessment might identify specific features and management protocols that would facilitate the safe evacuation of a student or staff member with a disability from the areas required for access. This could best be achieved through the use of PEEPs as discussed previously. Thus it might be possible to provide comprehensive means of escape provisions to selected areas, matching those to which access is available or has been provided. However, constant review by management is vital where this approach is adopted as even temporary impairments, such as fractured or broken limbs, might necessitate the relocation of an entire class to another part of the school or campus. It should be noted that, in an attempt to discharge the requirement under the Act to provide access, some designers and building managers have overlooked their responsibility to provide safe egress. In any event, where access is provided in educational buildings, then the principles for unassisted escape should follow the guidance in this document.
Events that encourage access by the wider public, such as parent-teacher meetings or concerts and plays might frustrate the control measures in place for normal use and consideration should be given to establishing the specific needs of visitors prior to their arrival. It is recommended that the assembly areas of educational buildings be assumed to require universal access and egress.
New educational buildings should be designed to facilitate access and egress requirements by all users. However, as previously discussed, the provision of refuge spaces should be subject to a specific assessment based on the maximum, rather than the minimum, expected occupant capacity. The concept of progressive horizontal evacuation, utilising the higher levels of compartmentation provided, will merit consideration.
Included in this building category are:
Due to their protected status, heritage buildings can often prove to be the most problematic in terms of affording access to, and consequently suitable egress, by people with disabilities. But it also follows that, unless adequate and reasonable means of escape can be provided, it is irresponsible to provide or allow access. It should not be construed that the provision of access without suitable means of escape is some form of compromise.
Because of their national importance, heritage buildings rarely facilitate entry without some form of access control, if for no other purpose than to prevent vandalism and theft. This prerequisite for managed and supervised access provides an opportunity to assess the impairments of visitors in a dynamic way and therefore continually assess the levels of risk and the specific assistance that might be required by visitors at any given time. Obviously, the ability to identify and assess the significance of physical and mental impairments in this way requires a level of training and skill. Thresholds at which entry is restricted or prohibited must be benchmarked against predetermined criteria and the capacity of staff to deal with the varying permutations of occupant and building constraints should be subject to regular audits across the staff spectrum.
Sensitive smoke detection systems, known as aspirating detectors, can be unobtrusively installed where the internal decoration is of significant historic interest. These detection systems use pipework, about the diameter of a pencil, to "sniff" and sample the internal atmosphere for particles of smoke and can readily detect small ignitions, such as a match being struck. These ultra-fast detectors can dramatically reduce the time to detection, allowing additional time for escape, compared to conventional fire alarm systems, even those provided with automatic detection.
In these types of premises, fire suppression systems, such as sprinklers, can suppress or extinguish a fire in the early development stages. This type of intervention has benefits for both the occupant and the historic building alike. Although their utilisation might not, in the first instance, appear consistent with the environs of a place of historical interest, their workings can nowadays be effectively concealed within the fabric to be totally unobtrusive.
With the availability of other active systems, such as smoke extraction, pressurisation, gas flooding etc., suitable means of escape can often be "engineered" where traditional physical fire resisting measures would be considered an unacceptable intrusion.
In addition to active systems, approved methods are available for upgrading floors, walls and doors without affecting their character or appearance, indeed the introduction of self-closing doors or maintaining internal doors in a closed position will provide considerable benefit, even if the doors themselves have only nominal fire resistance.
As stated, the difficulty of providing means of escape from historic buildings should not be underestimated and this constraint is often as applicable to non-disabled people as to those with disabilities. This type of premises will often necessitate the involvement of a fire safety specialist who can assess the implications of the building constraints, such as poor fire resistance or smoke control, together with the physical constraints of its occupants, such as poor mobility or poor vision. It is essential, for this exercise to be meaningful, that the building management are fully engaged in this process.
Included in this building category are:
This type of premises is often split between public access and non-public access areas. Within the non-public access areas, i.e. the staff accommodation, the levels of impairment will usually be more easily identifiable and management can establish the appropriate evacuation plans. As a matter of good practice, all staff should be invited at recruitment and at regular intervals thereafter to discuss their needs in the event of an emergency evacuation and develop a PEEP, which should be tested not less than every six months. The risk assessment process, together with the guidance in this publication should assist.
The public access areas tend to prove more problematic in terms of determining the numbers of occupants with impairments, the degree of impairment and the reduced opportunity to develop bespoke evacuation strategies for the building. Within public access areas therefore, it should be assumed that the population is representative of the national average and that approximately 10% of the occupants will have some level of physical or intellectual disability. Where no restriction is afforded to access, then there is a clear onus on the building management to ensure that such measures are in place to facilitate either the assisted or unassisted evacuation of all of the building's occupants. In circumstances where access is restricted, and management protocols are in place to evaluate the numbers of visitors with impairments and the nature of their impairments, then it is easier to plan for the assisted or unassisted evacuation of a quantifiable number of people.
A great deal of guidance is provided in BS5588-12: 2004 "Fire precautions in the design, construction and use of buildings - Part 12: Managing fire safety". This document deals with managing fire safety from the design stage through commissioning to end use.
The aim of emergency evacuation planning is to have in place a system for making sure that everyone in the building can safely escape in the event of a fire or other emergency.
To plan effectively, it is first necessary to have comprehensive information about :
The occupancy profile for the building will provide information about the likely numbers of people with disabilities and the types of disability that could be expected. In buildings, that are open to the public, it is not possible to know exactly what the occupancy profile will be, but assumptions will still need to be made in order to prepare plans. In some buildings it is possible to have reasonably accurate information about the occupancy profile. This is generally the case in buildings with controlled access, such as hospital wards, residential care premises, student accommodation or office buildings. However, even in these buildings it is possible for exceptional circumstances to arise when visitors are present or events are being run. Emergency evacuation planning needs to be able to take account of these exceptions.
To provide for the needs of people with disabilities it is necessary for the emergency evacuation plan to have addressed the following questions:
In drawing up an emergency evacuation plan it is essential to consult disability groups or, if possible, building users including staff. Where regular users of the building (including staff, visitors, contractors, etc.) need assistance with evacuation and it is possible to identify them, then it will be essential to develop individual plans which meet their needs. These plans are known as Personal Emergency Egress Plans or PEEPs.
The drawing up of a PEEP must be done in partnership with the person affected and needs to have a degree of inbuilt flexibility to allow for exceptional circumstances. The PEEP is essentially an agreement between the management and the individual on what steps will be taken if an emergency evacuation is required.
The PEEP matches the needs of the person with disabilities to the capabilities of the egress design and management system. Using a PEEP, it is possible to have assistance pre-arranged through a buddy system, with pertinent information about the person's needs conveyed in advance to the helper.
Guidance on the preparation of PEEPs is provided in the Access Handbook Template produced by the NDA (www.nda.ie) and further information is available in a publication produced by The Northern Officer Group (NOG) entitled Personal Emergency Egress Plans
These documents give comprehensive advice on the preparation of escape plans and make the point that their use is intended to be very specific to individuals.
Important issues in the development and use of PEEPs include:
A copy of the Personal Emergency Egress Plan Template used in the NDA's Access Handbook Template is included in Appendix 2, together with a copy of the Emergency Egress Questionnaire used in the NOG document.
The information supplied in the preceding sections of this document will be of help in planning for safe egress. The number of people involved in drawing up the plan will depend on the size of the organisation. However, even if only one person is involved it will be useful to have access to a reviewer for comment. It may be beneficial to have assistance from someone in the health and safety or fire safety professions.
When the emergency egress plan has been produced and tested to ensure that it meets the needs of people with disabilities, it should be incorporated into the Safety Statement required under health and safety legislation.