Fire accident risk assessment of high rise building based on fuzzy bow tie approach

Abstract

Despite the numerous risks that high-rise buildings face, fire accidents happen most frequently. Studying fire accidents in high-rise buildings is crucial because they can result in harm to people’s health, fatalities, property damage, and pollution. The number of accidental fires in buildings is very large since it is difficult to isolate a single cause and all processes and control measures are not appropriately implemented. This paper proposes a fuzzy-bow tie approach to evaluating the risk of fire accidents by taking into account the various fire sources and effects. The fourteen-floor high-rise residential building is used as a case study for the proposed fuzzy bow tie approach. The fuzzy fault tree approach estimates that there is a 0.0968% risk of a fire accident occurring in that high-rise building, with a possibility for 9 out of 100 accidental fires annually. The fuzzy event tree model predicts that loss of life and loss of property are the most likely consequences of an accidental fire. Accordingly, mitigation strategies can be developed by building officials and fire safety practitioners.