Page 82 - Build 151

Departments/Research By Haejun Park, BRANZ Fire Research Engineer
Egress for people with disabilities
The New Zealand Building Code has no speci c accessible egress requirements for people with disabilities. It’s a complex issue, and changes are needed.
A 2006 SURVEY FOUND that approximately 660,000 people identi ed as having a disability, which corresponds to 17% of the New Zealand population. This figure may not include people who were temporarily injured, pregnant women and
parents with prams, even though their mobility may be similar to those with disabilities.
With the increasing number of aged people who are susceptible to mobile and sensory impairments, the potential number of people with disabilities is expected to grow.
Safe egress in regulations, not Code
Building Code clause D1 Access routes does not explicitly require egress routes out of buildings that are suitable for people with disabilities. However, it does include requirements for accessible routes to and within buildings.
Accordingly, the Acceptable Solutions do not comprehensively cover the need to provide safe egress for people with disabilities.
Safe egress tends to be handled by the Fire Safety and Evacuation of Buildings Regulations 2006. These require that relevant buildings – most public buildings – have an approved evacuation scheme with provision made for people with disabilities.
Consequently, evacuation provisions for people with disabilities generally use ‘soft’ factors, for example, an emergency evacuation
plan or fire warden system, rather than ‘hard’ factors, such as enhanced noti cation and way- nding systems or hardened elevators.
Concerns with current safety strategies
Egress-related concerns of people with disabilities can be largely categorised by three problematic egress steps:
● Alarm and noti cation – sounders may not be an e ective means of
notifying hearing-impaired occupants compared to strobes or shakers. ● Way nding – vision-impaired occupants may have di culty nding
their way to safe exits as typical signage may not work for them.
● Movement – without hardened elevators, people in wheelchairs may need to use exit stairs and, without assistance from others, they
are unlikely to be able to self-rescue.
These are simple cases, but the concerns become complex once building use and a more detailed level of disabilities are considered.
Personal experiences aid understanding
People with disabilities, caregivers, building facility managers, disability advisors and Fire Service personnel attended six work- shops held around New Zealand. The aim was to collect New Zealand- speci c data to understand the egress strategies participants had considered or used in real or practice emergency situations.
Egress strategies identified in workshops
Research participants identi ed several occupant strategies and responses: ● Take any alarm seriously even if it is thought to be a re drill.
● Want more information about what is going on and where to go soon
after the alarm sounds.
80 — December 2015/January 2016 — Build 151