S2E04 | Familiarity and debunking the myth of Panic

Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations

Welcome to Season 2 of Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations! This season, the show's theme is Humans as part of a fire safety engineered system. In this series, we will unravel our understanding of human behaviour in fires and how this complex behaviour may be accounted for in the fire-safe design of buildings. Our understanding of the occupant response, decision-making process and biases may influence our design of exits and improve (or impede) the egress process.
In the final episode of Season 2, we continue the discussion on familiarity, which is explained through the theory of affiliation. Why clustering of people is a more familiar state than evacuating alone? How may understanding the familiarity of exits ruin our evacuation plan, and why should the main exit serve the occupants as their main escape route? Here, we demonstrate how understanding human behaviour theories may help us engineer better.
In the final part of this episode, we deal with some damaging myths related to human behaviour in fires. First, we discuss the altruistic behaviour of people, showing how compassion is more widely observed in fires compared to an individualistic approach. Then, we discuss the definition of Panic - one as understood by the scientists studying the phenomenon and the other as understood by media/layman. We discuss why panic is often used as a clickbait, scapegoat or cover-up of more serious technical issues (often all three at the same time). It is imperative that engineers understand the true concept of panic and other aspects of human behaviour and then use this knowledge to design better buildings.
Guests featured in this podcast episode:

• Prof. Daniel Nilsson, University of Canterbury, Halliwell Fire Research

Thank you for being us in the Season 2 of the Uncovered Witness. Follow @WojciechITB at Twitter or https://www.linkedin.com/in/wojciech-wegrzynski/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/fireresearchgroupltd for current information about new episode releases. Season 3 is coming soon, and this time, we will discuss the legal skeleton of a building and the responsibilities for building defects related to fire safety!

This show is produced by the Fire Science Media for Halliwell Fire Research. Executive producer - Monika Węgrzyńska, scripting and production - Monika and Wojciech Węgrzyńscy, sound engineer - Mikołaj Jarząbek. All rights reserved. 2024.