| Abstract | As Canada and other countries move from prescriptive-based building codes to performance/objective-based codes, new design tools are needed to aid in demonstrating that compliance with these new codes has been achieved. One such tool is the computer model FiRECAM, which has been developed over the past decade by the Fire Risk Management Program of the Institute for Research in Construction at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). FiRECAM [1,2] is a computer model for evaluating fire protection systems in residential and office buildings that can be used to compare the expected safety and cost of candidate fire protection options. To evaluate fire protection systems in light industrial buildings, a new computer model is being developed. This model, whose current focus is aircraft hangars and warehouses, is based on a framework that allows designers to establish objectives, select fire scenarios that may occur in the building and evaluate the impact of each of the selected scenarios on life safety, property protection and business interruption. The new computer model is called FIERAsystem, which stands for Fire Evaluation and Risk Assessment system. |
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