EFFECTIVENESS OF FIRE EMERGENCY PLAN OF HIGH-RISE OFFICE BUILDINGS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Emergency preparedness in high-rise office buildings is extremely important in a built up environment of Singapore. Even though high-rise fires are rarely seen, FEP should be of utmost importance to building owners and occupants in order to safeguard their lives during a fire emergency. “How effective is FEP in the protection of lives in commercial high-rise buildings in the event of fire emergencies?” This dissertation presents a study on the effectiveness of FEP in commercial high-rise buildings. The objectives are to understand the formulation of FEP and their purpose in general, examine their implementation and effectiveness, and to propose further measures to enhance fire safety management. The research methodology involved literature reviews, professional interviews, data collection from targeted respondents and analysis of findings. Literature reviews are used to identify the objectives and focus of this study. In order to achieve the first objective, a senior officer from the fire emergency planning of HQ SCDF is approached to describe the formulation process and the purpose of FEP. After that, the second objective is achieved by interviewing five FSMs about FEP and its importance towards fire safety management in their buildings. Furthermore, high-rise office workers are also approached for their perceptions. This is important as the purpose of FEP is to ensure a level of emergency preparedness so as evacuation would be smoothly carried out. Limitations in this study involve gaining access to information as issues of confidentiality. In this study, it can be observed that FEP is effective in preparing the management and occupants against fire emergency. Besides supporting views from the FSMs, this can also be seen from about 80% of the respondents saying that they are better prepared and more than 70% have expressed confidence in the fire safety management at their workplace. However, drills are carried out independently in buildings without any supervision from the SCDF. Furthermore, it can be observed that the FSM has a heavy responsibility for ensuring the procedures in the plan to be properly implemented on top of other designated job scope. The two recommendations proposed in this study are the Fire Scenario Score Card and Self-Evacuation Card.