Escape route

Approved document B, Fire Safety, Volume 2, Buildings other than dwellinghouses (2019 edition), defines an escape routes as a:

Where a final exit is:

'The end of an escape route from a building that gives direct access to a street, passageway, walkway or open space, and is sited to ensure that people rapidly disperse away from the building so that they are no longer in danger from fire and/or smoke.'

Windows are not acceptable as final exits.

Escape routes may be protected or unprotected, where an unprotected part of an escape route, is that part which a person has to traverse before reaching either the safety of a final exit or the comparative safety of a protected escape route, i.e. a protected corridor or protected stairway.

See unprotected escape route and protected escape route for more information.

Alternative escape routes are: ' Escape routes that are sufficiently separated by direction and space or by fire resisting construction to ensure that one is still available if the other is affected by fire. Note: A second stair, balcony or flat roof which enables a person to reach a place free from danger from fire is considered an alternative escape route for the purposes of a dwellinghouse.'

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Alternative escape route.
• Automatic release mechanism.
• Building evacuation.
• Emergency lighting.
• Evacuating vulnerable and dependent people from buildings in an emergency FB 52.
• Exit passageway.
• Fire compartment.
• Fire detection and alarm systems.
• Fire door.
• Fire Door Inspection Scheme.
• Fire Prevention on Construction Sites.
• Fire protection engineering.
• Firefighting route.
• Inner room.
• Means of escape.
• Place of safety.
• Protected escape route.
• Protected stairway.
• Safe room.
• Unprotected escape route.
• Visual alarm devices - their effectiveness in warning of fire.
• Width of doors stairs and escape routes.