Citation

Bowen J. Fire Safety J. 1985; 9(2): 205-209.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the decisions concerning which order to afford automatic sprinklers and smoke detectors for a group of buildings. The fire protection engineer can evaluate each building and rank the risk for each. The computer model developed here uses the rating scale 0 - 10 for several factors related to fire dynamics and occupancy susceptibility. The computer model then gives a scale rating of the percent of occupancy and building risks for each building. Then the reliability and effectiveness of sprinklers and smoke detectors is entered interactively and the rate at which one wishes to off-load the occupancy risk relative to off-loading the building risk is entered. Using the utility of each building defined to be the value of the building plus the annual revenue it produces, the program ranks the sprinkler and smoke detector decisions according to the cost for each relative to the degree of risk averted.