Fire Risk Index for Historic Buildings

Fire protection engineers and preservation architects have long recognized the difficulty in applying building and fire codes to historic buildings. Small, older buildings of significant historic value need an efficient approach to performance-based evaluation. One technique that has gained acceptance is fire risk indexing. The Historic Fire Risk Index described in this paper uses a linear additive model of multiple attribute evaluation to produce a measure of relative fire risk. Weights are established to indicate the importance or significance of fire risk parameters. Then, for each specific historic structure, parameter grades, i.e., the amount or degree that a parameter is present, are determined from information collected in a detailed site survey. Fire risk is evaluated by the scalar product of the parameter weights and grades, producing a single numerical value representing the level of fire safety provided in the building. This is a more rational and more transparent method than the risk indexing systems currently published in model codes and standards.