RESEARCH ABOUT THE SAFETY AGAINST FIRES IN THE SPANISH HOSPITALS: CURRENT SITUATION AND PROPOSED SOLUTION

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this paper it has been developed the topic of the safety against fires in the spanish hospitals. It is studied the current situation in Spain, analyzing on the one hand the code against fires of obliged application and on the other one, realizing studies in the own buildings, which allows to come to real conclusions about the existing situation. The previous analysis discovers notable lacks of the code in its application to hospitals, which imply that the current existing situation in these buildings is not the suitable one since, in case of fire, they do not have at their disposal any means for the protection of the occupant in the building, forcing to make a vertical evacuation that should never be considered to be possible. As a response to the described situation a solution based on the integration of technologies of passive protection before fires and of active control of the smoke is justified. To sum up, it is a question of offering a solution to the protection against fires in hospitals that solves the existing problems at the present time, incorporating the new opportunities offered by technology, at the same time that a greater efficiency is achieved in the used resources. Key Words: fire safety codes, hospitals fire safety, evacuation, building design vs security, smoke control.