Evaluation of Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) Using Pathfinder: A Case Study of a Hospice Palliative Care and Elderly Care Building

Abstract

This study aimed to 1) simulate the safe evacuation time (RSET) during daytime and nighttime compared to the legal required time, and 2) to suggest improvements in the fire evacuation pattern to be appropriate for the area in order to evacuate people from the building in the least possible time. Pathfinder program was used for evacuation simulation during fire. There were 176 building occupants during the daytime and 79 at nighttime. This study simulated fire situations according to 8 hypothetical situations; 1) setting the delay time before evacuating (delay time) and 2) not setting the delay time before evacuating (delay time). The results showed that during the daytime, terminal patient wards had the longest RSET (624.3 s; 10.4 min), while at night the overall RSET was highest (832.8 s; 13.9 min). The increased RSET at night was attributable to reduced staffing levels. When delay time was excluded, terminal patient wards still exhibited the longest daytime RSET (541 s; 9 min), and the overall nighttime RSET remained the highest (767.3 s; 12.8 min). This study found that occupants required more than 300 seconds (5 minutes) to evacuate exceeding the legal time limit except for the fire scenario in the 2nd floor pantry room where no delay time was specified. These findings highlight the need to minimize evacuation delays and demonstrate how simulation results can inform improvements to evacuation planning.