Movement Through Fire Smoke – Past Research and Current Standards Development

People reduce their movement speed as fire smoke becomes denser and more irritant. This impact of smoke on movement is often not considered in performance-based fire safety design of everyday buildings, but for some types of built structures, such as tunnels, it can be considered in the design. Since the pioneering studies of the 1970s, much research has explored how people slow down in smoke-filled environments. However, there is no standardised way to represent the impact of fire smoke on movement speed in performance-based fire safety design, but an ISO Technical Specification (TS) is being developed. The objective of this TS is to provide guidance to designers on how to represent movement through fire smoke in performance-based fire safety design.