A provisional fire risk characterization of informal settlements of different scales in San Jose, Costa Rica

IF 3.4 3区工程技术 Q2 ENGINEERING, CIVIL

Fire Safety Journal Pub Date : 2025-06-02 DOI:10.1016/j.firesaf.2025.104439

Sara Guevara Arce , Anne Davidson , Chloe Jeanneret , John Gales , Mohamed Beshir

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Abstract

This study gathers and explores qualitative information from four informal settlements within San Jose, Costa Rica, to help define future informal settlements’ fire safety research. In this paper, field visits to the four different settlements were conducted. Two of which are categorized as “large”, being over 0.50 km², while the other two are “small” being between 0 and 0.25 km². The physical differences and similarities observed in each settlement are considered with the aim to determine how these features might affect the fire risk and population response in case of a fire event. Through these visits, it was possible to conclude that informal settlements of similar size share several characteristics, while there is a clear difference between those of different sizes. The main differences and similarities were related to waste-management, proximity, type of construction of the houses, materials used, and organization within the community. This research also discusses current challenges faced by practitioners when performing informal settlements fire spread and evacuation modeling.

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哥斯达黎加圣何塞不同规模非正式住区的临时火灾风险特征

本研究收集并探讨了哥斯达黎加圣何塞四个非正式住区的定性信息，以帮助确定未来非正式住区的消防安全研究。本文对四个不同的定居点进行了实地考察。其中两个被归类为“大”，面积超过0.50平方公里，而另外两个被归类为“小”，面积在0至0.25平方公里之间。考虑在每个定居点观察到的物理差异和相似性，目的是确定这些特征如何影响火灾风险和火灾事件时人口的反应。通过这些访问，可以得出结论，大小相似的非正式住区有几个共同的特点，而不同大小的非正式住区之间则有明显的差别。主要的差异和相似之处与废物管理、邻近性、房屋的建筑类型、使用的材料和社区内的组织有关。本研究还讨论了从业人员在进行非正式住区火灾蔓延和疏散建模时面临的当前挑战。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Fire Safety Journal 工程技术-材料科学：综合

CiteScore

5.70

自引率

9.70%

发文量

153

审稿时长

60 days

期刊介绍： Fire Safety Journal is the leading publication dealing with all aspects of fire safety engineering. Its scope is purposefully wide, as it is deemed important to encourage papers from all sources within this multidisciplinary subject, thus providing a forum for its further development as a distinct engineering discipline. This is an essential step towards gaining a status equal to that enjoyed by the other engineering disciplines.