3 ms·

Yea, every fire code I know how requires a minimum of 2 escape route for occupancy

• roywiggins 5y ago
  You can satisfy that with a fire escape in a lot of cases, I would have thought?
  • bobthepanda 5y ago
    In practice, usually fire escapes are more harm than help. A fair amount of disasters happened where in the event of an actual fire, the fire escape had been poorly maintained and became overloaded so that they fell to the ground during the evacuation.
• Sharlin 5y ago
  As the article states, there are lots of Western countries (including mine) that do not require a second stairwell for midrise apartment buildings. It's not a theoretical question. In a properly compartmentalized apartment building, you should not exit your apartment unless it's the one that's on fire.
  • syshum 5y ago
    Well I am never convinced by an argument of "well others do it", that is never a valid justification IMO. The US has always done things different than the EU, and IMO that is a good thing. As to fire, that is but one of many other safety concerns, I personally will never live in a place that only has 1 escape vector, even if fire concerns were mitigated
    • Sharlin 5y ago
      Not perusing available evidence when making policy decisions like this is simply bad decisionmaking. “Doing things our way” just out of principle is just as silly as blindly aping others. It’s possible to (fallaciously) argue against anything by saying “but we’re special so doesn’t apply to us” and I’ve seen too many bad decisions made due to what is essentially a case of the NIH syndrome.