Fire Safety Design For Tall Buildings: Recent Developments

One of the most significant changes in approach to fire safety design is the growing recognition of the importance of fire engineering by design. The traditional prescriptive approach cannot be extended much further; more money is being spent on fire safety measures, yet most fire engineers would hesitate to say that it is being spent in the most effective way or that it is achieving the desired results. Traditionally also, the desired result has been defined in vague terms —safety of life or property—but only in the field of property safety has quantification of costs and benefits had an explicit effect on the measures required. Action is now required at the national level to establish criteria for acceptable standards of public safety. An international organization can initiate efforts to achieve this by showing how the considerable amount of available technical and statistical data might be used.