Identification of fire safety indicators for shopping centre buildings in Surabaya

Abstract

Abstract The convenience of shopping and getting entertainment at the same time is an advantage which is offered by the shopping centres. But the different functions of building and the crowds of visitors at the shopping centre inflict a greater risk of fire. Therefore, the safety against fire needs to be considered by the shopping centres in order to make users and the building structures more secure. Current fire safety regulation is still dominated by the standards and the codes from NFPA. The lack of conducting researches and knowledge related to fire safety affects the suitability and the application of regulations in Indonesia. This research aimed to identify the fire’s safety criteria according to the current local conditions of shopping centres. A survey was conducted by distributed questionnaires. The variables used in the questionnaire were obtained based on the literature studies and then it was assessed by several experts. According to the experts’ judgment, all variables are relevant with the current local conditions and there were three new variables added in this research. The result showed that the construction practitioners needed to improve their knowledge related to the fire safety in shopping centre starting from the initial stages of design.