A Fire Safety Evaluation System for Prioritizing Fire Improvements in Old High-rise Buildings in Hong Kong

Abstract

Fire safety in old high-rise buildings is of great concern to the general public as a result of several big fires occurred over the past 10 years. A fire safety evaluation system is essential for building engineers to quantify the fire safety level, to identify the measures to be improved and to schedule the corresponding improvements. Together with a scoring system with weighting factors derived for local buildings, this paper proposes a universal fire safety evaluation (FSE) checklist for fire safety level quantification and improvements prioritization in old high-rise buildings. In a survey, the fire safety levels of 122 old high-rise buildings in Hong Kong were quantified using the scoring system. The survey results showed that only less than 5% of the inspected samples reached the standard required for life safety. The FSE checklist was then applied to prioritize the improvement works of 10 selected buildings with the lowest scores.

Comprehensive plan for assessing and improving safety level of commercial centers towards the prevention of social and economical consequences of accidents

“…Another suggestion of the study is real time control based on Internet to increase efficiency for building management operations. Wong and Lau (2007) studied the situation of old high-rise buildings by considering fire safety standards during a period of 10 years. They surveyed fire safety levels of 122 old buildings in Hong Kong by a universal fire safety evaluation (FSE) checklist.…”

“…Fire safety in old high-rise buildings is of crucial significance to the general public as a consequence of several big fires during the previous years (Chow et al, 1999a;Wong, 2005;Wong et al, 2007). Fire safety engineering is the application of scientific and engineering principles, basics, tents, and expert opinion, based on an insight of the phenomena and effects of fire and of people's reaction to fire, in order to protect people, property and the environment from the negative effects of fire (Borg and Nja, 2013).…”

“…Today, the issue of fire protection in high-rise buildings and commercial centers has been established in a fully systematic mode at the international level. Since the economic and financial assessment of projects and during their design and implementation, this important task is considered at international levels (Lo, 1999;Wong and Lau, 2007). However, in Iran, this important subject has not been received sufficient attention in commercial, manufacturing, educational, and healthcare buildings despite the recent attention being paid to the issue of fire protection in major industries such as oil, gas, petrochemical, refinery and auto-making domains (Razavi, 2012).…”

Exploring policy options to combat illegal microapartments in Hong Kong

“…Unfortunately, the safety of the built environment is often jeopardised by a number of human factors. Erroneous design, poor workmanship and building misuse or abuse are the most often cited factors for safety hazards (Lo, 1998;Al-Homoud & Khan, 2004;Pearson & Delatte, 2005;Wong & Lau, 2007). Nonetheless, illegal building, such as unlawful additions, alterations and removals, which also plays an important role in determining building safety, has not attracted much academic attention.…”

Combating building illegality in Hong Kong: A policy Delphi study

“…The misuse of buildings, leading to overcrowding or overloading, is another important factor (e.g. Lo, 1998;Wong & Lau, 2007). However, building illegality, such as unlawful additions, alterations or removals, which also plays an important role in the determination of building safety, has not attracted much academic attention.…”