Fire Behaviour versus Human Behaviour - Literature review Example

Fire has affected human civilization many times. Any individual who has faced such a situation once knows the fear and pain it brings along. Human behaviour gets affected due to it. Many times fire which arises is due to negligence. To put we can say “a fire to be extreme or sudden or unexpected”. (Close, 2005) in the true sense, “extreme fire behaviour is a situation where we have limited ability to control it and impact it has on the safety”. (Close, 2005) An important thing which “people feel in the society is that such an incident of fire cannot happen to them”. (Close, 2005) As a result of which people are not prepared. This causes “cognitive dissonance in an individual”. (Close, 2005) This means that “people only believe that good things will happen to them and they are not ready or at least prepared for such an incident”. (Close, 2005) This affects the injuries. More people get injured due to it. “This also affects the behaviour as a change in scenario causes them to react in a different way’. (Close, 2005) So, people should be “prepared for the worse as this prepares them for situation ahead and helps them in times of family setting as they know ways and measures to deal with those”. (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) A study has shown that “only 10-20% of the people remain calm during such emergency situation”. (Gonzales, 2005) This is because of panic. This gets intensified when family or people are around. This is because his “behaviour gets divided into cognitive i.e. learning from past experience, analyzing the situation, finding solutions and the other is emotional which is due to stress and fear’. (Gonzales, 2005) This stops the person from taking correct steps. “He loses his self and is not able to control. This results in injuries”. (Gonzales, 2005) “Many people lose their life in fire due to the panic which spreads around”. (Fahy & Proulx, 2009) This is so because such an incident “causes the person to behave in a way where he is facing a life threatening situation create confusion and irrational behaviour”. (Fahy & Proulx, 2009) This is more when a family is there. To save everyone more panic spreads. This results in more injuries. This is so because “people try to escape through dwindling resources, getting affected by people present around i.e. friends, family, concern about one’s own safety and also the family if they are with the person and irrational and illogical response”. (Fahy & Proulx, 2009) This causes loss to life. This causes “people to run for safety and competition increases among them and instead of cooperating they try to save their own lives causing more injuries”. (Fahy & Proulx, 2009) So, it is important that people work together. They need to cooperate. People should know exit routes. Instead help should be provided. This will stop people from panicking. It is even seen that “in case of fire the actions of people change as instead of running for lives they start moving from one room to other and start warning people before escaping”. This causes more movement time. This is more in case of families. Thus, fire has been a cause of worry. “People have different perceptions and so there behaviour gets altered when there is a change in the situation prevalent and it is reflected in the overall life saving mechanism adopted by fire fighters as there is total chaos and confusion”. (Erica, 2009) We can say that basically “a human behaviour at the time of fire consist of information seeking, milling, preparing for evacuation and informing others”. (Erica, 2009) So, human behaviour is basically taking decision. This is based on “certain cues, interpreting the situation and the risk involved”. (Erica, 2009) So the behavioural decision follows as Here, in the above process “people receive cues from flames, smoke, heat and debris and from phone calls from outside the building”. (Erica, 2009) Then people try to analyse the situation. “Here they use different perceptions and here is where panic and confusion spreads. This also leads to taking wrong decision. This increases the fatalities and it is more affected in families. People behaviour also gets altered due to the family setting”. (Erica, 2009) When we try to have a look at how the behaviour changes due to such situation. A research was conducted where “different factors where included and this contained all that could have affected the human behaviour”. (Erica, 2009) Here the research has also included “the other factors other than the individual ones like the family and how it affects the behaviour in different situation and how they deal with such situation”. (Erica, 2009) This study shows the irrational behaviour. It still helps to highlight certain important areas. It has helped people to develop new methods to face such situation. The behaviour has been presented in the following table. It shows how “both the cue and occupant based factor affects the human behaviour and it depends on how one perceives those cue”. (Erica, 2009) His behaviour gets altered by this. “This affects the perception and thinking process and causes the person to react in a different way when he faces a similar situation sometimes later in life”. (Erica, 2009) Here we have also seen how age, sex plays a role. It has different affect to the behaviour. This behaviour further gets changed by the way they receive this information. Different people know about fire in a different way. When we see how people came to know about the fire will reflect their perception. It is presented below It shows that different people know about it in different ways. “This affects their behaviour as they use different ways to evacuate. It also leads to different people receiving information at different time thus affecting the time they get to save their life”. Even “the behaviour pattern gets affected by culture as people from different countries behave in different ways as there is a difference in the way they think and work”. It thus affects their behaviour. When we try to see how a person reacts in case fire catches also varies. “Gender plays a role here as people are different from each other so there behaviour also gets altered”. (Human Behaviour and fire, 2001) Different people have different motive. “This causes them to change their outlook. This also affects the way a person sees a situation. Some run for cover where as other try to save others. Some run after their family and some have different reasons’. When we look at the pie chart below we will better understand how each one reacts to the same situation. We will also be able to understand how different gender reacts to the same situation. Male Respondents Female Respondents Thus we see that they have different behaviour. “Even gender affects the perception. They think in a different way and have different priorities so there is a change in the way they behave”. This has affected ways to save them. Different ways are required according to it. People get affected by fire. “It causes different hazards to people and it is caused mostly because of temperature, heat, smoke and reduction in oxygen”. (Human Behaviour and fire, 2001) “The temperature causes burn and affects in different ways and extreme heat even results in death thus affecting the life of other associated with him”. (Human Behaviour and fire, 2001) It is seen that as “temperature rises burns also increases and some are so severe that even the recovery becomes impossible”. (Human Behaviour and fire, 2001) This causes a change in behaviour. The next time such an incident happen the reaction changes. This gets reflected in the mind set. It is reflected in the overall change in behaviour. Smoke also reduces visibility. “People find it hard to breathe as the oxygen level depletes causing suffocation”. (Human Behaviour and fire, 2001) This also raises casualties. ‘More people suffer from different type of diseases after the incident”. This increases “when we use fire extinguisher as it contains carbon monoxide and it results in more people suffering from respiratory problems”. (Human Behaviour and fire, 2001) A person’s behaviour also gets altered “in the group they are as people want to move together in a group and want to move out together to avoid the danger that is prevalent”. (Human behaviour and fire, 2001) The behaviour also changes depending on the knowledge. A person who knows the in outs of the building behave differently. For example “a person who knows about the exit routes will find it easy to run compared to the other”. The behaviour is also affected by the “level of commitment also affects the behaviour as people who are committed will continue working till he is confirmed about the fire but others will run and try to evacuate the building fearing their lives”. (Human behaviour and fire, 2001) A research shows that “still a prescriptive based design is used instead of performance based design in buildings causing more injuries during fire”. (Brian, 1999) This means that “it is assumed that people will be safe and alerted in case fire arise as there are fire detection and signalling system, sprinklers, fire compartmentalization installed’. (Brian, 1999) This is not the case. “As human behavior and response changes affect life safety during a fire or emergency and needs for integrating these issues into a fire safety management plan to save lives”. (Brian, 1999) A research shows that “human behaviour gets altered during fire and it is mainly the setting prevalent in the building to exit affects him”. (Kobes, Ira & Post, 2009) This study shows that “people run towards exit routes to save their lives and non availability of correct information or lack of visibility due to smoke affects the vision which causes more fatalities”. (Kobes, Ira & Post, 2009) So, it says that more new ways should be found out and buildings built in such a way that there is passage for exit. This after the 9/11 world trade centre incident more focus is being laid on the building structure as it affects the behaviour. “Having an alarm bell is not sufficient as more panic spreads and even psychologist and scientist say that more exit routes and newer structures needs to be developed to reduce confusion and help people during fire”. (Lea, 2004) This is because “people look for cues like smell of smoke or a co-worker saying them to run or whats happening”. (Lea, 2004) This needs for having “new features like automatic exits which open as fire spreads and a more comprehensive building orientation”. (Lea, 2004) Even when a person escapes it gets affected by “the building dimensions, the role of the person whether he is a staff or not, the floor where the person is, how early the persons knows about fire, whether the person knows about the exit route and avoiding routes where there is smoke”. (Human behaviour in fire, 2006) Thus knowledge and calmness plays a crucial role. This all factors determine escape. “This will be of prime importance as it will help him know the way to stairs. Getting caught on the higher floors also affects their escape. Its important people know all about this to escape. Moving through smoke filled places affects more as visibility and respiratory both problems arise. Thus life saving at such a situation becomes tough even for fire fighters”. (Human behaviour in fire, 2006) Thus, we see how a situation affects a person. “It brings a change in his thinking. It makes them to behave differently. It also affects their behaviour. People have different perceptions and likings. This all gets reflected and it brings a change in behaviour pattern”. Today, there is increase in such incidents due to terrorist activity. It is important to understand the behaviour and then use ways to save more and more people. This can only be done by understanding their behaviour and perception. References Brian M, 1999, “Integrating human behaviour and response issues into fire safety management of facilities”, Journal of facilities, Issue 17, Number 9/10 Close K, 2005, “Fire behaviour versus human behaviour”, eight international wildlife fire summits, Missoula Erica D, 2009, “the process of human behaviour in fires”, National Institute of Standards and Technology, US department of commerce Fahy R & Proulx G, 2009, “Panic and human behaviour in fire”, 4th international symposium on human behaviour in fire, Robinson College, Cambridge, UK Gonzales L, 2005, “Deep survival- who lives, who dies and why”, W.W. Norton & Company Inc Human behaviour and fire, 2001, Introduction to fire science, section 1, Unit 4, Flannery Associates Human behaviour in fire, 2006, Department for communities and local government, London Kobes M, Ira H & Post J, 2009, “Building safety and human behaviour in fire- a literature review’, fire safety journal, Springer, Netherland Lea W, 2004, “Fighting fire with psychology”, American Psychological Association, Volume 35, Number 8 Weick K & Sutcliffe K, 2001, “Managing the unexpected – assuring high performance in age of complexity”, Jossey-Bass Read More