Thompson, O (2020) Towards a comprehensive understanding of human behaviour in dwelling fires. PhD thesis, University of Greenwich, UK.
Abstract
This thesis looks at human behaviour in accidental dwelling fires (ADFs), specifically the behaviours and motivations of those who survive fires in low-rise dwellings. Human behaviour in fire is a well-established subject area, but the primary research focus has been on behaviour in public, commercial and industrial spaces. With the exception of the identification of occupant-related risk-factors for fire fatalities, there has been very limited research undertaken to understand human behaviour in ADFs. This lack of understanding means that the frameworks, models, and other tools used to understand, explain and predict behaviours in fires are currently of limited relevance to dwellings. A range of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was undertaken on 419 occupant surveys collected as part of the LIFEBID project. This analysis has developed an understanding of people’s behaviours and motivations, associations between behaviours and select variables (e.g. gender, smoke alarms), as well as advanced understanding of risk factors for ADF injuries. A total of nine research questions were proposed. The study was able to answer eight of these; a lack of available data from high-rise dwellings prevented investigation of the other. The research findings have been distilled into five highlights and have led to the development of the Domestic Appraisal Response (DAR), a shorthand way to contextualise occupant behaviour during an ADF. As well as contributing to clear gaps in the knowledge, this work has a range of practical and theoretical outcomes for both practitioners and academics. For evacuation modellers, the findings offer a resource to assist in the development of behavioural itineraries for evacuation modelling. For fire and rescue services, the findings are relevant to: fire safety messaging, fire prevention activity, incident command training and operational response, and emergency call handling. Importantly, this work has already resulted in changes to fire and rescue policy and practice.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Galea, E and Hulse, L |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | gender; human behaviour; motivation; dwellings; evacuation; fire safety; policy; safety; training; statistical analysis |
| Index terms: | motivation, human behaviour, injury, occupant survey, appraisal, practitioner, statistical analysis, occupant behaviour, fire safety, modelling, prevention, fatalities, risk factor, investigation, air quality |
| Subjects: | analytical methods, psychology, practitioner, health behaviours and lifestyles, environmental hazards, health safety and environment, financial risk, factor and component analysis, data science, data collection methods, air quality, health conditions and diseases, health risk and incident analysis |
| Topics: | Human Resources, Research Practice, Cost Management, Roles and Professions, Engineering Principles, Health and Safety, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here