Firefighters ascending and evacuation speeds during counter flow on staircase

The counter flow condition on the escape stairs is a situation that may occur during the evacuation from buildings when the downward flow of evacuating occupants passes the upward flow of firefighters heading to the fire floor. The aim of this work is to provide data of firefighter movement speeds for numerical modelling and calculations. A series of experiments was conducted on a staircase with and without a simultaneous counter flow of ascending firemen. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.