Published as: Kobes, M., J.Post, I. Helsloot, B. de Vries (2008) Fire risk of high-rise buildings based on human behavior in fires. In: Conference Proceedings FSHB 2008. First International Conference on fire Safety of High-rise Buildings. Bucharest, Romania, May 07-09, 2008. Fire risk of high-rise buildings based on human behavior in fires Margrethe Kobes 1 & 2 , Jos Post 1 , Ira Helsloot 2 , Bauke de Vries 3 1 Netherlands Institute for Safety (NIFV), correspond to margrethe.kobes@nifv.nl 2 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Social Sciences 3 Eindhoven University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning Abstract This paper describes the fire risk of high-rise buildings related to evacuation in case of fire. The fire risk is based on human behavior and on the determinants of a safe evacuation of occupants during a fire. An extensive review of literature on human behavior in fires revealed the determinants for fire safety engineering with regard to the survival of occupants. In this paper the determinants are set out for the assessment of fire risk of in particular high-rise buildings. Keywords: Fire risk, evacuation, human behavior, high-rise buildings 1. Introduction Many fires in buildings have shown that the behavior of occupants is important for the survival of a building fire [Kobes, 2008]. Therefore it is reasonable to characterize the fire risk of buildings based on human behavior in fires. The concept of fire risk can be defined as the probability of a fire causing a loss of life (or injury) and/or damage to property [Tillander, 2004]. Human behavior is defined as actions that people take, based on the perception of the situation, the intentions for actions and the considerations before the actions are carried out. Occupants are in the first stage of a fire primarily thrown on their own resources or on those of surrounding people. The behavior of people in the first stage of a fire is the most determining factor for survival. An additional significant factor is the availability of fire safety measures, for example fire extinguishers and accessible escape routes. The assistance of professional emergency services, such as rescue operations conducted by firefighters and emergency treatment by paramedics, can only be provided just after the first, and most important, period of a fire. Therefore, the possibility of surviving a fire is determined on the fire response performance of people. 2. Human behavior in fires 2.1 Fire response performance Fire response performance is the ability of an individual to perceive and validate signals of danger and to make and carry out decisions that are effective relating to survive a fire situation with none or little health complications afterwards. The fire response performance of humans is influenced by [O'Connor, 2005; Gwynne et al., 1999] (the behaviour of