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An emergency exit in a structure is a special exit for emergencies such as a
fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...
: the combined use of regular and special exits allows for faster evacuation, while it also provides an alternative if the route to the regular exit is blocked. The qualifications for an emergency exit are as follows: it must be in a location that is easily accessible, the exit must have an area or location that it can bring people to in the event of any emergency, it must be controlled by the inside of the building, it must be well managed and regularly up kept, and it must be in a permanent location. It is usually in a strategically located (e.g. in a stairwell,
hallway A hallway or corridor is an interior space in a building that is used to connect other rooms. Hallways are generally long and narrow. Hallways must be sufficiently wide to ensure buildings can be evacuated during a fire, and to allow people i ...
, or other likely places) outward opening door with a
crash bar A crash bar (also known as a panic exit device, panic bar, or push bar)American National Standards Institute, ANSI/BHMA A156.3-2001, American National Standard for Exit Devices is a type of door opening mechanism which allows users to open a doo ...
on it and with
exit sign An exit sign is a pictogram or short text in a public facility (such as a building, aircraft, or boat) denoting the location of the closest emergency exit to be used in case of fire or other emergency that requires rapid evacuation. Most rele ...
s leading to it. The name is a reference to when they were frequently used, however, a fire exit can also be a main doorway must be able to be unlocked from the inside of the room. A
fire escape A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency th ...
is a special kind of emergency exit, mounted to the outside of a building.


History

Following the events of the
Victoria Hall disaster The Victoria Hall disaster occurred on 16 June 1883 at the Victoria Hall in Sunderland, England, when a stampede for free toys caused 183 children (aged between 3 and 14 years old) to be crushed to death due to compressive asphyxia. Events On ...
in
Sunderland, England Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
in 1883 in which more than 180 children died because a door had been bolted at the bottom of a stairwell, the British government began legal moves to enforce minimum standards for building safety. This slowly led to the legal requirement that venues must have a minimum numbers of outward opening emergency exits as well as locks which could be opened from the inside. However, these moves were not globally copied for some time. For example, in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, 146 factory workers died in the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The ...
in 1911 when they were stopped by locked exits, and 492 people died in the
Cocoanut Grove fire The Cocoanut Grove fire was a nightclub fire which took place in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, on November 28, 1942, and resulted in the deaths of 492 people. It is the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history, and the second-deadliest ...
in a Boston nightclub in 1942. This led to regulations requiring that exits of large buildings open outward, and that enough emergency exits be provided to accommodate the building's capacity. Similar disasters around the world also resulted in public fury and calls for changes to emergency regulations and enforcement. An investigation was launched by the Argentine federal government after 194 people were killed during the 2004 República Cromañón nightclub fire in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The emergency exits had been chained shut by the owners, to prevent people from sneaking into the nightclub without paying.


Buildings

Local
building code A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for constructed objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permiss ...
s will often dictate the number of fire exits required for a building of a given size. This may include specifying the number of stairs. For any building bigger than a private house, modern codes invariably specify at least two sets of stairs. Furthermore, such stairs must be completely separate from each other. Some architects meet this requirement by housing two stairs in a "
double helix A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another. Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to: Film and television * Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character * ...
" configuration where two stairs occupy the same floor space, intertwined. For old buildings that predate modern fire code requirements and lack space for a second staircase, having intertwining stairs so close to each other may allow firefighters going up and evacuees going down to use separate staircases.
Westfield Stratford City Westfield Stratford City is a shopping centre in Stratford, east London, which opened on 13 September 2011. With a total retail floor area of , it is the largest urban shopping centre in the UK by land area and the 4th-largest shopping cen ...
uses this configuration in the Upper car park. This part of the building has 8 storeys: LG, G & 1 are part of the shopping centre; 2 has some offices & a storage area; CP1, CP2, CP3 & CP4 are a
multi-storey car park A multistorey car park ( British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a bui ...
. The floors are served by the main public lifts & escalators, & by 1 set of a double-helix stairway & lift per 1000 square metres, going into the service areas. The main public escalators don't count as fire exits, as the doors may be locked during less busy periods. The building, therefore, has one fire exit per 4000m2 of floor space. Knowing where the emergency exits are in buildings can save lives. Some buildings, such as schools, have
fire drill A fire drill is a method of practicing how a building would be evacuated in the event of a fire or other emergencies. In most cases, the building's existing fire alarm system is activated and the building is evacuated by means of the nearest a ...
s to practice using emergency exits. Many
disasters A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...
could have been prevented if people had known where fire escapes were and if emergency exits had not been blocked. For example, in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the
World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
, some of the emergency exits inside the building were inaccessible, while others were locked. In the
Stardust Disaster The Stardust fire was a fatal fire which took place at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Ireland, in the early hours of 14 February (Valentine's Day) 1981. Some 800 people had attended a disco there, of whom 48 died and 214 were injure ...
and the
2006 Moscow hospital fire 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second smalles ...
, the emergency exits were locked and most windows barred shut. In the case of the Station Nightclub, the premises was over capacity the night fire broke out, the front exit was not designed well (right outside the door, the concrete approach split 90 degrees and a railing ran along the edge), and an emergency exit swung inward, not outward as code requires. In many countries, it is required that all new commercial buildings include well-marked emergency exits. Older buildings must be retrofitted with
fire escape A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency th ...
s. In countries where emergency exits are not standard, fires will often result in a much greater loss of life.


Signage

The UK Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 define a fire safety sign as an illuminated sign or acoustic signal that provides information on escape routes and emergency exits. Well-designed emergency exit signs are necessary for emergency exits to be effective. Fire escape signs usually display the word "EXIT" or the equivalent word in the local language with large, well-lit, green letters, or the green pictorial "running-man" symbol developed and adopted in Japan around 1980 and introduced in 2003 by
ISO 7010 ISO 7010 is an International Organization for Standardization technical standard for graphical hazard symbols on hazard and safety signs, including those indicating emergency exits. It uses colours and principles set out in ISO 3864 for th ...
. Pictorial green "running-man" sign is mandatory in Japan,
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
, Australia,
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
and
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and increasingly becoming common elsewhere. Some states in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
currently require the exit signs to be colored red, despite the usage of color red in signage usually implies hazards, prohibited actions or stop, while the color green implies safe place/actions or to proceed. Older building code in Canada required red exit signs, but no new installation is allowed.


Blocked exits

Firefighters have cited overzealous security guards who told people during a fire that they are not allowed to use emergency exits. The practice is actually quite common in the absence of fires, as well. Some skyscrapers have stairwells with standard emergency exit signs on each door, which then lock upon closing. Users of these stairwells are trapped, whether they do not know that the only door that opens from the inside is the one on the ground floor. A further problem becoming very common in the USA (2005) is that retail stores at night close one of their main entrance/exits through makeshift heavy metal barriers, signage, paper notes, or junk placed in front of the exits. Some actually lock their exits. A large array of signage and mechanical exit systems have also been devised, including signage that says contradictorily, "This is not an exit," "Do not use this exit," or warning users that a heavy penalty will be assessed for non-emergency use. Some systems do not allow the exit to be opened until the user signals the intention to exit (through a button or lever) for some amount of time, such as 20 seconds. It is also common for these exits to remain completely locked until somebody tests them. Some have alarms activated when they are opened, to alert staff of unauthorized use during non-emergencies. On many exits, the user may have to hold down a
crash bar A crash bar (also known as a panic exit device, panic bar, or push bar)American National Standards Institute, ANSI/BHMA A156.3-2001, American National Standard for Exit Devices is a type of door opening mechanism which allows users to open a doo ...
or other door opening device for a period of time to unlock the door. Many exits have a sign reading, 'emergency exit only, alarm will sound if opened', to warn of the fact that it is an emergency exit only.


Aircraft

In aircraft terms, an "exit" is any one of the main doors (entry doors on the port side of the aircraft and service doors on the starboard side) and an "emergency exit" is defined as a door that is only ever used in an emergency (such as
overwing exits Overwing exits are found on passenger aircraft to provide a means of evacuation onto the wing, where passengers continue off the trailing edge, either by sliding down the extended flaps or by using an evacuation slide that deploys when the exit ...
and permanently armed exits). Passengers seated in
exit row An exit row is a row of seats on board a commercial airliner that is next to an emergency exit. Exit rows may be next to overwing exits or full-sized exit doors. Passenger criteria Since passengers seated in an exit row must be able and willing ...
s may be called upon to assist and open exits in the event of an emergency. The number and type of exits on an aircraft is regulated through strict rules within the industry, and is based on whether the aircraft is single or twin-aisled; the maximum passenger load; and the maximum distance from a seat to an exit. The goal of these regulations is to make possible the evacuation of an airliner's designed maximum occupancy of passengers and crew within 90 seconds even if half of the available exits are blocked. Any aircraft where the emergency exit door sill height is above that which would make unaided escape possible is fitted with an automatic inflatable
evacuation slide An evacuation slide is an inflatable slide used to evacuate an aircraft quickly. An escape slide is required on all commercial (passenger carrying) aircraft where the door sill height is such that, in the event of an evacuation, passengers wo ...
, which allows occupants to slide to the ground safely. † 9 passenger aircraft only Ventral exits must allow the same rate of egress as a Type I exit, tailcone exit are aft of the fuselage. Aircraft for less than 19 passenger must have one sufficient exit in each side of the fuselage, two per side for more, no more than apart from each other. In November 2019, the
EASA The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) with responsibility for civil aviation safety. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs investigation and monitori ...
allowed 'Type-A+' exits with a dual-lane evacuation slide to increase maximum accommodation increased to 480 seats up from 440 with four pairs of doors on the
A350-1000 The Airbus A350 is a long-range, wide-body twin-engine jet airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The first A350 design proposed by Airbus in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the A330 ...
, and up to 460 on the
A330-900 The Airbus A330neo ("neo" for " New Engine Option") is a wide-body airliner developed by Airbus from the Airbus A330 (now A330''ceo'' – "Current Engine Option"). A new version with modern engines comparable with those developed for the Boeing ...
.


Gallery

File:Bus Emergency Exit.JPG, Public bus top emergency exit for when the sides are blocked, in English, Spanish & Vietnamese. File:MTR Hyundai Rotem EMU D007 Head.jpg,
MTR Hyundai Rotem EMU The Hyundai Rotem EMU (also known as R-Train or 1141B) () is a current model of heavy rail electric multiple units used on the Mass Transit Railway in Hong Kong. The 9-car sets are manufactured by Hyundai Rotem for the North South Corridor, a ...
train emergency exit in the middle of both heads/ends File:Ryanair Boeing 737-800 (EI-DWO) takes off from Bristol Airport, England, 23Aug2014 arp.jpg, Ryanair
Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boein ...
take off, showing the two overwing emergency evacuation doors File:Heidenklinge V-Bahn-Notausgang.jpg,
Railway tunnel Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
exit opening out in rough terrain File:Metro-Cammell-Kcr103.jpg, KCRC Metro-Cammell (before refurbishment) EMU emergency exit in the middle of both heads


References


External links


Information on fire exit signs in Britain
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emergency Exit Architectural elements Construction law Safety