Future of fire safety for Malaysian housing

Abstract

Fire is very dangerous and life threatening. Although not all fire resulting in death but the number of death during a fire are rather alarming. It is further worsen if the fire occurred during nighttime, in highly populated resident area such as multi-storey flats and squatters area. Although not all fire resulted in death, fire in buildings will cause the loss of properties and in extreme cases can lead to progressive collapse. Therefore fire safety has always been an essential requirement for buildings. Fire safety has commenced from prescriptive based and then improve to performance based. Nowadays, as more studies and research had been done in perfecting and evaluating performance based, a rational approach towards fire safety had been developed. As the modern architecture and engineering continues to evolve in practicability, rational approach in fire engineering had to be adopted. A rational engineering approach in fire safety engineering mainly by integrating prescriptive based and performance based for overall life safety. It will be based on principles of reasons, common sense, science, engineering and practicability. A new way looking into fire safety building codes more reliable, realistic and cost effective.