This study assessed the fire risk of day care centers which is located in Daegu, using Pathfinder and FDS, and deals with the improvement of evacuation safety. Because Day care centers have infants who are not able to evacuate by themselves and toddle...
This study assessed the fire risk of day care centers which is located in Daegu, using Pathfinder and FDS, and deals with the improvement of evacuation safety. Because Day care centers have infants who are not able to evacuate by themselves and toddlers who need helpers to evacuate, fire is more likely to cause a catastrophe. The fire risk has been assessed based on Case1 applied to the number of current nursing teachers for infants under the age of one and Case2 which enables them to evacuate in both directions. According to the number of nursing teachers based on infant child care act, a nursing teacher for less than one-year-old infants is allowed to nurture 3 toddlers. The result of fire risk assessment shows that Case1 makes it impossible to evacuate because RSET(Required Safe Egress Time) overruns ASET(Available Safe Egress Time) on first and second floor. Based on the number of nursing teachers given from infant child care act, there should be a nursing teacher per an infant under the age of one, so there are twelve infants and four nursing teachers on the first floor, and bottleneck phenomenon happened at the exit leading to outside. In Case2, there should be a nursing teacher per two infants, and there are twelve infants and six nursing teachers. After adding one more exit on the second floor, it turned out to be safe because RSET is within ASET.
Through this study, it is aimed to raise awareness about the necessity of fire risk assessment of day care centers where there are infants who lacks the ability to handle the crisis. In addition, the fire evacuation is improved for infants as the weak and it is expected that infants as our society's dream and future will stay in more safe day care centers.