Occupants' Behaviour in Response to the High-rise Apartments Fire in Hiroshima City

摘要

A remarkable, large fire occurred in a 20 stories high-rise apartments in 1996 in Hiroshima City. The fire spread from the fire origin apartment unit on the 9th floor up to the top 20th floor, very quickly by external flame spread through balconies. The authors investigated the evacuation behaviour of the occupants including reaction to fire cues, motives for starting evacuation, and choice of evacuation route by means of questionnaire survey and also peer interviews with some of them, focusing on the use of elevators in evacuation by floor height and/or age group in this very rare fire incident. From the investigation, the following results were obtained.