Emergency Egress In Supported Accommodation
A standard evacuation assumes occupants walk out. In supported accommodation many cannot, which changes the number of exits, their widths, the detection system and the time the building has to buy.
How is emergency egress designed for residents who cannot self-evacuate?
With more than one accessible exit, step-free and wide enough for a wheelchair or an evacuation aid, early detection so staff have time, construction that resists fire spread for long enough to move people, external paths that continue to a safe place, and a design developed with the operator's evacuation plan rather than separately from it.
Fire safety in a dwelling assumes the occupants leave. In supported accommodation that assumption does not hold, and the design has to do more work to compensate.
The requirements follow from the building's [classification](/blog/ncc-classes-special-use-accommodation), and the classification follows from who lives there and what support they need, which is why this is settled early rather than late.
What changes when residents cannot self-evacuate
**Time becomes the design objective.** If moving a resident takes minutes rather than seconds, the building has to remain survivable for longer, and the people doing the moving have to know sooner.
**Detection matters more than anything else.** Early warning is what converts an impossible evacuation into a manageable one. Which means a system that detects early, alerts staff wherever they are, and does not rely on somebody hearing a local alarm.
**Exits have to suit the equipment.** An exit a wheelchair cannot pass through is not an exit for that resident. Step-free, wide enough, and openable by whoever is operating it under pressure.
**Staff are part of the design,** which is where the [operator's](/blog/what-an-accommodation-provider-needs-from-a-builder) evacuation plan has to be in the room during design rather than written afterwards to suit a finished building.
Exits and paths
More than one, and both usable.
A dwelling with a compliant front door and a back door with a step has one accessible exit. Under pressure, with one route blocked, that is a serious problem.
The path does not stop at the door either. It continues across the [external works](/blog/landscaping-and-external-works) to a place that is genuinely safe: a firm, step-free, adequately wide route to a holding position clear of the building, with enough space for the number of people and chairs that will be there.
Gates on that path have to open without a key. Fences designed for security have to be designed for exit as well, and reconciling those two is a real design exercise in some accommodation types.
Construction
Separation between sleeping areas and the rest of the dwelling. Separation between dwellings where they adjoin. Resistance at the boundaries that matter, for the period the class requires.
In a factory-built dwelling those assemblies are built as tested systems, in sequence, indoors, and inspected before they are covered. Which is a meaningful advantage, because [fire separation](/blog/fire-and-acoustic-performance-in-modular) fails in practice through penetrations and poor sealing rather than through the wrong material, and both of those are workmanship items.
Every service penetration through a separating element needs the correct protection, installed correctly. In a controlled environment that is checked. On a site under a deadline it is sometimes not.
Detection and alarm
A system suited to a house where somebody may need to be carried, which usually means interconnected detection throughout, alerting at a point staff monitor, and where the support model is remote, alerting off site as well.
Sprinklers are required in some classes and worth considering in others, because they buy exactly the thing this design is trying to buy, which is time.
Where the design and the plan meet
The building provides the exits, the widths, the detection and the resistance. The provider decides who moves whom, in what order, to where.
Neither works without the other. A well-built dwelling with no plan and a good plan in a dwelling with one accessible exit both fail in the same way.
Which is why the evacuation plan belongs in the brief. It changes door positions, path widths, the holding area and sometimes the number of modules.
MADEmodular / MADEbetter.
MADEmodular / MADEbetter.