Fire Scenario Development for South African Hospitals
type: CreativeWork
description: Hospital fires continue to present a serious threat to life safety, particularly in developing countries such as South Africa (SA), where outdated infrastructure, limited maintenance, and unreliable fire protection systems compromise effective fire safety management. Hospitals are uniquely vulnerable environments in which evacuation is complex, delayed, or, in many cases, impractical for the health of occupants. The day-to-day function of a hospital is complex, requiring the combined operation of many services, including surgical and medical services, kitchens, laundries, chemical laboratories, and janitorial services, to name a few. The result is an occupancy with a large variety of combustible and toxic materials, plentiful ignition sources, and complex evacuation mechanisms due to the vulnerable patients. The safety of hospital occupants, therefore, depends heavily on the integrity of compartmentation, the functionality of fire protection systems, and the preparedness of staff to effectively implement defend-in-place procedures. Despite these risks, limited research has examined how operational practices and system reliability influence tenability conditions in SA hospitals, where prescriptive fire-safety standards may not account for the complexity of hospitals and are often poorly enforced. This study investigated the development and spread of heat, smoke, and combustion products in a representative SA hospital ward using the Consolidated Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST) two-zone model. The objective was to evaluate how typical SA operational and emergency procedures, and system functionality influence environmental conditions affecting vulnerable occupants. Following a performance-based design (PBD) methodology, three “representative” design fire scenarios were developed to represent credible fire hazards identified through stakeholder engagement and literature review: (1) a fire which blocks a major escape route, (2) a threatening fire which occurs in an unoc…
abstract: Hospital fires continue to present a serious threat to life safety, particularly in developing countries such as South Africa (SA), where outdated infrastructure, limited maintenance, and unreliable fire protection systems compromise effective fire safety management. Hospitals are uniquely vulnerable environments in which evacuation is complex, delayed, or, in many cases, impractical for the health of occupants. The day-to-day function of a hospital is complex, requiring the combined operation of many services, including surgical and medical services, kitchens, laundries, chemical laboratories, and janitorial services, to name a few. The result is an occupancy with a large variety of combustible and toxic materials, plentiful ignition sources, and complex evacuation mechanisms due to the vulnerable patients. The safety of hospital occupants, therefore, depends heavily on the integrity of compartmentation, the functionality of fire protection systems, and the preparedness of staff to effectively implement defend-in-place procedures. Despite these risks, limited research has examined how operational practices and system reliability influence tenability conditions in SA hospitals, where prescriptive fire-safety standards may not account for the complexity of hospitals and are often poorly enforced. This study investigated the development and spread of heat, smoke, and combustion products in a representative SA hospital ward using the Consolidated Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST) two-zone model. The objective was to evaluate how typical SA operational and emergency procedures, and system functionality influence environmental conditions affecting vulnerable occupants. Following a performance-based design (PBD) methodology, three “representative” design fire scenarios were developed to represent credible fire hazards identified through stakeholder engagement and literature review: (1) a fire which blocks a major escape route, (2) a threatening fire which occurs in an unoc…
author: Buchanan, Scott Daniel
language: en
date published: 2026-03
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:40:09Z
provider: Stellenbosch University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University