Construction of explanatory fire-loss model for buildings

This study focuses on investigating the affecting factors and constructing an explanatory model for fire losses. The research was carried out using a series of questionnaires and official reports. A total of 918 cases of residential building fires in Taiwan from January 1998 to February 2002 are examined. The contents of the investigations include attributes of occupants and building fire safety, time and spatial attributes of fire occurrence, fire development and egress, fire brigade interventions and the resulting fire losses. Using factor analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis and path analysis, significant factors that have been identified, including degree of fire severity, dispatched fire-fighting forces, control time, degree of difficulty of fire egress, partition structure, time of fire occurrence, accessibility and conditions of fire-fighting and situations of escape routes are conceptualized and examined. The relative weights of importance among these factors on fire losses are analyzed as well. Connecting the identified significant factors by time sequence of fire occurrence and development, an explanatory model is proposed to explain fire loss for residential building.