Safety Assessment in Hamadan's Bazaar and Suggesting Control Strategies with Emphasis on Fire Safety

Hamadan’s Bazaar is an important market in terms of historical, economic, social and safety aspects. Hamadan’s Bazaar is a critical unit in regard to safety measures, because of inappropriately designed buildings and paths along with the high economic value of the existing goods. The purpose of this study was safety assessment of the bazaar in order to introduce strategies to prevent accidents. In this cross sectional study, Hamadan’s bazaar was divided into 83 zones byobservation (risk assessment), evaluation and interview with experts. Risk assessment foreach zone was performed based on 22 parameters such as the dominant material, activityvalue, suitability of firefighting systems and etc. Comparison of parameters and computing theirs weights was conducted through the paired comparison method. Four risks estimates including general, prevention, detection and control risks were calculated for each zone. Safe, precaution and danger limits were defined for the mentioned risks. The results showed that considering prevention, detection and control risk, respectively 25.5, 47 and 53 % of the zones were in danger and the rest were in precaution limit. In terms of total risk, 20.5 and 79.5 % were in danger and precaution limits respectively. The results showed no region of the market was in safe limits. Thereforeimplementation of technical and administrative controls such as firefighting equipment