Seismic Vulnerability Reduction and Fire Risk Mitigation in Dormitories

Loss of lives and properties caused by natural or man-made disasters، such as earthquake and fire، is a common issue. However، there are some buildings، which are more vulnerable to mentioned disasters due to the excessive number of residents and stories. Dormitories are highly vulnerable because not only they meet the above conditions، but also residents’ including students’ and employees’ lack of preparation and awareness about the ways of facing with danger increases their vulnerability. In this paper، dormitory of married students of Shahid Beheshti University has been selected. The organizational and non-structural vulnerabilities have been detected by applying a descriptive-analytical method. Firstly، the incident command system، solutions for risk mitigation of organizational and non-structural constructions in addition to some suggestions for preparing people to face with the disasters have been presented in accordance with the reference to disaster management theories and based on the data collected from the observations، questionnaires and interviews. Different measures are proposed based on adaptation of the dormitory organizational chart to incident command system diagram such as taking maneuvers، promoting safety culture، providing emergency evacuation plan and suggesting risk mitigation solutions for non-structural elements.