Design a safe firefighting time (SFT) for major fire disaster emergency response

A major fire disaster is hazardous to both occupants trapped in the built environment and firefighters during the firefighting operation. Though various construction codes, technologies, and facilities have enhanced occupants’ evacuation in fire, insufficient effort is made to ensure a safe firefighting and rescue environment for firefighters, and their safety is not effectively guaranteed in the process of firefighting. To fill this gap, this work proposes a new concept of safe firefighting time (SFT) in fire safety design, combining the features of firefighting and evacuation behavior. By referring to the available and required safe egress time, ASFT (Available Safe Firefighting Time) and RSFT (Required Safe Firefighting Time) are defined with detailed calculation methods. As a demonstration, safe firefighting time including ASFT and RSFT is evaluated in a fire safety performance-based design of a tunnel. Apart from fire safety design, SFT could contributes to smart firefighting supported by emerging technologies. The framework for future fire safety design and the research needs in smart firefighting with SFT are discussed combining intelligent approaches such as IoT infrastructures and cloud services. In summary, this study introduces the safe firefighting time and application approaches in fire safety design that extends the current fire-safety design framework and lays a foundation for smart firefighting for engineers, firefighters and policymakers.