5 ms·

> It would result in people getting stuck on stairs and getting trampled This logic is absurd. Who came up with this "advice" is a complete idiot, second after

> It would result in people getting stuck on stairs and getting trampled This logic is absurd. Who came up with this "advice" is a complete idiot, second after a person approving a highrise with a single staircase, and even no external escape stairs. Even without a flammable cladding, you can get as short as minutes for how quick a fire can structurally compromise a even a very well fire proofed, and and better engineered highrise building. I believe, immediate evacuation was a norm in pretty much every country I lived in.

bigbubba 6y ago
The Station nightclub fire had people get trapped at the entrance by a stampede, so it can happen. Ideally buildings are now designed to mitigate that, and should have occupancy limits set low enough by the fire marshal to facilitate immediate evacuations. But if any of that isn't true, I think my best bet is making the decision to evacuate as early as possible, in hopes of beating the rush.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Panic is completely not a reason to not evacuate: 1. you do not panic in fire unless you want to die. 2. building may have less than an hour, or even minutes of structural integrity left after first alarm is heard. 3. you may have single minutes until people are incapacitated, and cannot leave on their own, or already dead from poisoning. 4. you may have minutes until smoke penetrates stairwells, or fire gets the emergency ventilation, or smoke gets thick enough to block emergency lighting, and people are trapped, even if they have smoke hoods.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    I agree. Trampling is a real concern, but one that would have me running for the exits sooner, not waiting longer.
  - avianlyric 6y ago
    > you do not panic in fire unless you want to die. This is not how panic works. Almost by definition no one chooses to panic, that’s why it’s so dangerous. As for the rest of your comment. It’s also crap written by someone who clearly has never studied fire safety and has assumed that all fire safety experts are fools. Rather than experts who have studied and modelled plenty of different scenarios, resulting in modern fire standards that rarely fail.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      > It’s also crap written by someone who clearly has never studied fire safety and has assumed that all fire safety experts are fools. If those were "experts" who came with this advise, then they are indeed round morons who should be fired immediately, and people who appointed, and supervised them fired too. People have a head on their shoulders to at least think about obvious life, or death decisions. You do not jump in front of a truck, you do not eat rotten potatoes, and you do not stay in a burning house no matter what "genius" comes with an alternative opinion on that. That is just mind boggling.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        It calls to mind the "terrorism experts" who always told us to obey hijackers' every command, no matter how dangerous it seemed. After all, we could trust that those trustworthy folks wanted to safely arrive at some destination. Until one day, the experts stopped making that recommendation.
    - x0x0 6y ago
      Not sure how you rectify > all fire safety experts are fools. Rather than experts who have studied and modelled plenty of different scenarios, resulting in modern fire standards that rarely fail. With the state of play in the UK, where something like 5% of homes need emergency remediation to make them actually firesafe. Or 2m people can't get a mortgage [1]. And that's with a cutoff of 54 feet of height! When all the insulation is retested, but for real, who knows how much will need remediation. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/913cc2ab-7fd5-4d41-a097-df408b4fa57d https://www.ft.com/content/913cc2ab-7fd5-4d41-a097-df408b4fa...

bigbubba 6y ago

The Station nightclub fire had people get trapped at the entrance by a stampede, so it can happen. Ideally buildings are now designed to mitigate that, and should have occupancy limits set low enough by the fire marshal to facilitate immediate evacuations. But if any of that isn't true, I think my best bet is making the decision to evacuate as early as possible, in hopes of beating the rush.

baybal2 6y ago
Panic is completely not a reason to not evacuate: 1. you do not panic in fire unless you want to die. 2. building may have less than an hour, or even minutes of structural integrity left after first alarm is heard. 3. you may have single minutes until people are incapacitated, and cannot leave on their own, or already dead from poisoning. 4. you may have minutes until smoke penetrates stairwells, or fire gets the emergency ventilation, or smoke gets thick enough to block emergency lighting, and people are trapped, even if they have smoke hoods.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  I agree. Trampling is a real concern, but one that would have me running for the exits sooner, not waiting longer.
- avianlyric 6y ago
  > you do not panic in fire unless you want to die. This is not how panic works. Almost by definition no one chooses to panic, that’s why it’s so dangerous. As for the rest of your comment. It’s also crap written by someone who clearly has never studied fire safety and has assumed that all fire safety experts are fools. Rather than experts who have studied and modelled plenty of different scenarios, resulting in modern fire standards that rarely fail.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > It’s also crap written by someone who clearly has never studied fire safety and has assumed that all fire safety experts are fools. If those were "experts" who came with this advise, then they are indeed round morons who should be fired immediately, and people who appointed, and supervised them fired too. People have a head on their shoulders to at least think about obvious life, or death decisions. You do not jump in front of a truck, you do not eat rotten potatoes, and you do not stay in a burning house no matter what "genius" comes with an alternative opinion on that. That is just mind boggling.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      It calls to mind the "terrorism experts" who always told us to obey hijackers' every command, no matter how dangerous it seemed. After all, we could trust that those trustworthy folks wanted to safely arrive at some destination. Until one day, the experts stopped making that recommendation.
  - x0x0 6y ago
    Not sure how you rectify > all fire safety experts are fools. Rather than experts who have studied and modelled plenty of different scenarios, resulting in modern fire standards that rarely fail. With the state of play in the UK, where something like 5% of homes need emergency remediation to make them actually firesafe. Or 2m people can't get a mortgage [1]. And that's with a cutoff of 54 feet of height! When all the insulation is retested, but for real, who knows how much will need remediation. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/913cc2ab-7fd5-4d41-a097-df408b4fa57d https://www.ft.com/content/913cc2ab-7fd5-4d41-a097-df408b4fa...