Overview of fire following earthquake: historical events and community responses

Purpose This paper aims to present a literature review on the problem of fire following earthquake (FFE) as a potential hazard to communities in seismically active regions. The paper is important to work toward resilient communities that are subject to extreme hazards. Design/methodology/approach The paper lists and reviews the historical FFE events (20 earthquakes from 7 countries), studies the available analytical tools to evaluate fire ignition and spread in communities after an earthquake, discusses the available studies on performance of individual buildings under post-earthquake fires and summarizes the current literature on mitigation techniques for post-earthquake fires. Findings FFE can be considered a potential hazard for urban communities that are especially not prepared for such conditions. The available analytical models are not yet fully up to the standards that can be used by city authorities for decision-making, and therefore, should be further validated. Limited structural analyses of individual buildings under FFE scenarios have been completed. Results show that the drift demand on the building frame increases during post-earthquake fires. Despite the mitigation actions, there are still urban cities that are not prepared for such an event, such as certain areas of California in the USA. Originality/value The paper is a complete and an exhaustive collection of literature on different aspects of FFE. Research in earthquake engineering is well advanced, while structural analyses under fire load and performance of communities under FFE can be further advanced.

[1]  Raul Zaharia,et al.  Fire after earthquake analysis of steel moment resisting frames , 2009 .

[2]  Federico M. Mazzolani,et al.  Improvement of Buildings' Structural Quality by New Technologies : Proceedings of the Final Conference of COST Action C12, 20-22 January 2005, Innsbruck, Austria , 2005 .

[3]  Paolo Gardoni,et al.  Probabilistic performance-based evaluation of a tall steel moment resisting frame under post-earthquake fires , 2016 .

[5]  Stephen Pessiki,et al.  Bond performance of SFRM on steel plates subjected to tensile yielding , 2011 .

[6]  Federico M. Mazzolani,et al.  Post-earthquake fire resistance of moment resisting steel frames , 2003 .

[7]  Stephen Pessiki,et al.  Effect of Earthquake-Induced Damage on the Sidesway Response of Steel Moment-Frame Buildings during Fire Exposure , 2015 .

[8]  Paolo Gardoni,et al.  Fire load: Survey data, recent standards, and probabilistic models for office buildings , 2014 .

[9]  Venkatesh Kodur,et al.  Review of post-earthquake fire hazard to building structures , 2008 .

[10]  Himmet Karaman,et al.  Post-earthquake ignition vulnerability assessment of Küçükçekmece District , 2013 .

[11]  Negar Elhami Khorasani,et al.  A Probabilistic Framework for Multi-Hazard Evaluations of Buildings and Communities Subject to Fire and Earthquake Scenarios , 2015 .

[12]  Rachel A. Davidson,et al.  Fire following Earthquake—Reviewing the State-of-the-Art of Modeling , 2008 .

[13]  Planning Resilient Communities , 2017 .

[14]  Hussam Mahmoud,et al.  Numerical Assessment of Connections with Reduced Beam Sections under Fire- Following an Earthquake Using Continuously Updated Boundary Condition , 2014 .

[15]  Brian J. Meacham,et al.  Overview of the Building Nonstructural Components and Systems (BNCS) Project , 2013 .

[16]  P. Kovacs.  Reducing the risk of earthquake damage in Canada: Lessons from Haiti and Chile , 2010 .

[17]  Charles Scawthorn,et al.  Fire Following Earthquake , 1986 .

[18]  James D. Myers,et al.  Architectural Overview of MAEviz – HAZTURK , 2008 .

[19]  A. Sekizawa,et al.  Study on Fires Following the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake based on the Questionnaire Survey to Fire Departments in Affected Areas , 2014 .

[20]  Spencer E. Quiel,et al.  Modeling steel structures in OpenSees , 2015 .

[21]  Greg Baker,et al.  Post-earthquake structural design for fire - a New Zealand perspective , 2012 .

[22]  Brian J. Meacham,et al.  Shake Table Testing of a Full-Scale Five-Story Building: Post-Earthquake Fire Performance , 2013 .

[23]  Behrouz Behnam,et al.  Investigating the Effect of Prior Damage on the Post-earthquake Fire Resistance of Reinforced Concrete Portal Frames , 2012, International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials.