User Manual

21
Siemens Switzerland Ltd
Building Technologies Division
3.4.2. Evacuation concepts
For each hotel an appropriate evacuation strategy must be defined in accordance with the physical organization
of the building, local regulations and in discussions with the local fire authorities.
Simultaneous evacuation
(general alarm)
In small hotels, evacuation will simply consist of everyone reacting to the
warning signal given when a fire is discovered, and then making their way to a
place of safety outside the building. This is known as a simultaneous evacuation
and will normally be initiated by the sounding of the general alarm (see above)
via the fire detection system or voice alarm system.
Phased evacuation
(staged alarm)
State-of-the-art fire detection and voice alarm systems are able to handle the
fully-automatic, step-by-step evacuation of a building. This results in the
following advantages:
• Reduced clogging (or blocking) of the escape routes and especially of
staircases. When the whole building is evacuated simultaneously,
people flock to the staircases on all floors at the same time, which may
lead to considerable tailbacks.
• Reduced probability of any panic reaction. The awareness of being in
danger without being able to get out quickly (blocked exits) easily leads
to panic reactions, the consequences of which may be even worse than
those of the fire itself.
Restriction of evacuation to the minimum is absolutely necessary. The complete
evacuation of an entire building is only recommended when the fire can no
longer be controlled. It is mostly sufficient to evacuate one or several fire
compartments.
During the first phase of an evacuation, the currently accepted procedure is to
evacuate the following groups of people:
• People on the floor where the fire was detected.
• People on the floor immediately above and below that floor.
3.4.2-1 Phased evacuation