Evaluation of a Fire Risk Index Method for Multistorey Apartment Buildings

A need for methods to assess fire risks in timber frame buildings lead to the development of FRIMMAB, a Fire Risk Index Method for Multi-storey Apartment Buildings. The main objective of this report is to evaluate this method against a different risk analysis method, in this case a standard QRA
(quantitative risk analysis) based on an event tree. Four different multi-storey apartment buildings in the Nordic countries were analysed in this study. The QRA resulted in a certain ranking of the four buildings with respect to fire risk. The Fire Risk Index Method was then used to analyse the same buildings. Three slightly different approaches were used to arrive at a fire risk index for each building. The Index Method results gave exactly the same ranking as the quantitative risk analysis for all three approaches. The conclusion of the analysis is therefore that FRIM-MAB seems to work reasonably well for multi-storey apartment buildings, but further studies are recommended to confirm this.