Studies on Human Behaviour in Fires in China

With the rapid development of economy in China, many big city groups were established. Consequent to having so many big fires in the world and implementing performance-based design for new buildings having difficulties to comply with the prescriptive fire codes, evacuation in a fire has to be studied carefully in many big projects. Human behaviour in fires becomes a hot research topic in China. Psychological aspects of human behaviour in fires have been studied extensively in western developed countries for almost a century. It is worthwhile to understand the development in those countries. Reviewing the literature on human behaviour in fires in the western developed countries becomes the objective of this paper. Further, development of some studies in China is outlined. Topics requiring further studies are also discussed.