Modelling occupant interaction with fire conditions using the buildingEXODUS evacuation model

When evacuating through fire environments, the presence of smoke may not on ly have a physiological impact on the evacuees but may also lead occupants to adapt their evacuation strategy through the adoption of another exit. Th is paper attempts to introduce this type of adaptive behaviour within the b uildingEXODUS evacuation model through enabling occupants to make decisions concerning the selection of the most viable available exit during an evacu ation involving fire. The development of this adaptive behaviour requires t he introduction of several new capabilities namely, the representation of t he occupants' familiarity with the structure, the behaviour of an occupant that is engulfed in smoke and the behaviour of an occupant that is faced wi th a smoke barrier. The appropriateness of the redirection decision is depe ndent upon behavioural data gathered from real fire incidents tin the UK an d USA) that is used to construct the redirection probabilities. The impleme ntation is shown to provide a more complex and arguably more realistic repr esentation of this behaviour than that provided previously. (C) 2001 Elsevi er Science Ltd. All rights reserved.