Evacuation planning crucial for buildings

Emergency lighting and evacuation planning are perhaps high among the complex issues that building owners and facility managers deal with.

With every building having its unique requirements, they have to consider several factors with regard to specification, placement, maintenance and regulation. This is critical seeing as a wrong decision at any point in the design and planning process can put the lives of building occupants at risk in emergencies.

Emergency lighting and effective evacuation processors are reliant upon a combination of factors including procedural planning, route mapping, training, and technology.

These considerations are essential to all commercial buildings which must not only be prepared for a possibility of fire but a range of newer potential threats including terrorism, civil unrest, or even extreme weather.

This need is further exacerbated in buildings that carry particular risk factors. Large buildings for instance can carry larger risks because of their complicated layout, high occupancy and low level of awareness of escape routes and procedures.

The risk can also be higher for buildings that have an above-average risk of being targeted by domestic attacks. Characteristics like these call for the adoption of evacuation procedures or technologies that are more sophisticated.

A common finding is that panic, congestion and difficulty in locating safe exits can inhibit the process of evacuation. With research indicating that only 38 per cent of people notice conventional exit signs in presumed emergency situations when they are unfamiliar with the built environment, conventional exit signs, being generally static, are unable to adjust their guidance or direction according to the changing circumstances or danger. This is a potential weakness given the diversification of threats facing complex buildings and the ways in which the threats can escalate.

To deal with such contingencies, firms such as Eaton have introduced new forms of escape guidance systems to improve the visual recognition of exit routes and provide greater flexibility in the routing of occupants.

These technologies, which include dynamic emergency lighting systems, exit signage as well and complete backup battery systems, direct occupants to an alternated exit point and adaptive system, which enables continuous adjustments of exit route guidance in line with location and hazard.

In addition to such escape systems, there is a need for integrated alert systems that not only give notification of a hazard but also provide information on where they should go. Emergency lighting and exit signage can do this and play a vital role in guiding people to the nearest dedicated exit areas safely.

Additional recommendations include illuminating all escape route signs, having a line of sight of an exit route and having the exit route signs be two metres from the floor above doors or suspended from a ceiling at 1.7 metres from the floor.

The writer is the regional manager Eastern Africa, Eaton Electric Ltd