Study on fire evacuation in public places during COVID-19 epidemic control

ABSTRACT

In order to explore the influence of the opening state of safety exits in public buildings on the personnel evacuation during the COVID-19 epidemic control, the evacuation management of public buildings and the opening state of safety exits were understood through the field investigation.The Pathfinder was used to simulate the fire evacuation of an office building in a university before and after the COVID-19 epidemic control, and the total length of individual congestion, the longest continuous congestion duration and the evacuation route in the personnel evacuation process were analyzed.Three recommended exits opening schemes were proposed, and the optimal scheme was obtained by Pathfinder simulation.The results showed that during the period of epidemic control, all the public buildings closed partial safe exits for the body temperature detection.The length of personnel congestion increased significantly during the epidemic control period, the per capita congestion time was 16.01 s, and the longest individual congestion time was 120.45 s before COVID-19,while the per capita congestion time was 23.92 s, and the longest individual congestion time was 168.23 s after COVID-19.Some personnel in region A converged to region B,resulting in an increase in the personnel density of stair 2 and the congestion of stairs on the 2～3 floors.The scheme Ⅲ with opening exits Ⅰ and Ⅳ simultaneously was the optimal opening scheme.