Effect of Classroom Arrangement on Fire Evacuation Scenarios in Educational Buildings

Fires in educational buildings cause great loss of life and property, but also negatively affect the spiritual and psychological development of students. It is necessary to eliminate fire risks and create safe learning environments. For this purpose, national and international fire safety regulations and application guidelines are of great importance. However, thanks to the developing technological possibilities, buildings should be analyzed with performance-based fire safety precautions, and safe evacuation conditions should be created. In this study, it is aimed to create a safe educational environment by determining the effectiveness of the relevant classroom layout arrangements in the creation of fire safety precautions in the classrooms in educational buildings. The effects of classroom layout arrangements on fire evacuation time were discussed by considering a secondary school building located in Turkiye. Classroom layout arrangements are investigated in four different formats: traditional rows and columns arrangement, cluster arrangement, U-shaped arrangement, and stadium arrangement. In the studies, the results of the total evacuation time of the class (s), the escape door flow rate (pers/s), and the number of occupants staying in the room depending on the time were evaluated. As a result of the study, it was determined that the fastest evacuation time was the traditional rows and columns arrangement. In addition, solution suggestions are presented for the removal of congestion during fire evacuation in different classroom layout arrangements. Fire safety should be transferred to architectural design and spatial organization as an important component in creating a safe learning environment in educational buildings.