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Fire escape or firefighting routes are often subject to high temperature, dense smoke and toxic fume when a fire breaks out in a building, thus leading to threats to the lives of people trying to evacuate or fight the fire. As a result, the safety of evacuation routes and configuration of firefighting routes become important safety issues in order to reduce the possible casualties in case of fires. The progressive characteristics of smoke and fume in a fire were studied to better understand the progression of fire in a building and the movements of smoke and fume. The fire simulation program, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), was introduced to simulate the progression of fire and smoke in a hotel. Simulation was conducted on the changes in smoke temperature, visibility, CO volumetric concentration and radiation heat at fire escapes through natural smoke exhaustion and mobile smoke exhausters. The result suggested that the smoke temperature, radiation heat and CO volumetric concentration in a corridor reached a level that would endanger people’s lives in a very short period of time in case of fire, and that the visibility was compromised to a point that safe evacuation of people was hardly possible. Therefore, the strategic placement of mobile smoke exhausters to provide air flows at positive pressure will not only control the flow of smoke effectively, but also maintain a safe passage to provide a route for those who are evacuating for safety and those who are getting in for rescue.
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