Research On Planning Support Methodology For Urban Fire Protection Planning

Fire, which plays a significant role in process of human and society development, always promotes the advancement of human civilization. However, disaster appears once the fires lose control. Human life and property are threatened accordingly. Since 2000, with the rapid industrialization and urbanization, China experiences a quick prosperity both in economics and society. Unfortunately, the expenses caused by fire are aggravating as well. Despite the efforts of current fire protection, the existing fire protection planning cannot satisfy the increasing requirement. Therefore, it is an important objective in current urban planning to minimize the fire lost, to achieve a secure, stable and sustainable city.The objective of this dissertation is to conduct research on fire protection in urban areas, by focusing on the aspects of "fire protection demand——fire protection supply——fire protection planning——protection security". Based on GIS platform, an urban fire protection supporting system for urban fire protection planning and management has been established, combining with quantitative analysis and intelligent decision system. This system provides technical, methodological and theoretical supports for urban fire protection planning, with both theoretical and practical merits. After defining the core research contents, this dissertation has reviewed and summarized previous literatures including methodology of urban fire protection planning, city safety and emergency management, urban fire protection application based on GIS technology, urban fire risk assessment and management, methodology and application of spatial accessibility analysis, urban planning support system and etc. This dissertation has concentrated on following parts:Quantitive assessment of urban fire risk:Constrained by urban environment, weather condition, urban form and nature of fire diffusion, the urban fire risk is difficult to quantify. Depending on the urban fire risk assessment theory, indicator system, and assessment methodology, an urban fire risk assessment indicator system based on GIS-MCE method has been introduced in this research. The assessing targets are buildings in urban areas. According with relative planning, criterion and standards, this system is established by judging whether the distance between buildings is qualified for keeping a safe distance. Meanwhile, the fire risk can be quantified and classified. The spatial distribution of fire risk can also be analyzed. This part of research focuses on analyzing the distribution of fire risk since it is the precondition to locate those areas with high fire risk in urban fire protection planning.Comprehensive assessment of urban fire protection capacity:fire station plays an important role in urban fire protection. Besides, parks are main open spaces in urban areas that are also important for fire protection. Both parks and fire stations are considered as major "supplying" facilities in urban fire protection. Based on accessibility analyses, the urban fire risk assessment methodology is addressed. This method defines 5 minutes (response time) and 15 minutes (evacuation time) as "time constraints", and urban roads as "spatial constraints" to evaluate fire protection capacity regarding spatial relationship. The accessible areas, covered population, and other indicators are also calculated. This part of research is to assess the fire protection capacity, determine the "blind spots" of urban fire protection planning and prepare for the remaining parts of research.Optimization of urban fire stations distribution:fire station is an important urban public infrastructure to guarantee the security of daily social activities. Therefore, the spatial distribution of fire stations is very important, and becomes the foundation of city emergency system. Unfortunately, the construction of fire stations in most Chinese cities lags behind the needs of the social and economical development and the fire stations are often found irrationally distributed. Therefore, concerning the assessment of fire risk and evaluation of protection capacity, this dissertation introduced an optimization method for fire station distribution by analyzing and summarizing determinable factors and traditional methods. The accessible areas and covered risky areas are indicators to form the evaluation system. This method sets minimal station number, maximal service coverage, and shortest response time as optimizing objectives, satisfying the highest potential risk demanding distribution.Case study:Fuzhou is the study area of this research. A planning support system mentioned in last three parts, namely "fire risk assessment-evaluation of fire protection capacity-optimization of fire station", has been implemented. Initially, based on the detection of positional fire risk spots in Fuzhou,9 kinds of building including multi-floor building, wood building and high-rise building are set as criteria to analysis the spatial distribution of fire risk in Fuzhou. Furthermore, the fire protection capacity of Fuzhou is evaluated by utilizing accessibility analysis to assess the current fire stations, the accessibility of parks and the service coverage. Combining with different scenarios and objectives, this dissertation has simulated two scenarios in order to compare the effects of fire protection. Finally, the optimized distribution of Fuzhou fire stations is generated, and some police issues are addressed accordingly.