Original Article A Case Study of Fire Safety Measures at Malaysian University Residential Colleges Shazrizil Zakaria a* , Desa Ahmad a , Khalina Abdan a , Mohd Rafee Baharudin b a Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Malaysia. b Occupational Safety and Health Management Office, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Malaysia. * Corresponding Author: shazrizil@yahoo.com.my ABSTRACT: Fire emergencies are threat to the occupants of a residential college. Some of the Malaysian residential colleges were built in the 1970s. Back then, the compliancy to Uniform Building By-law 1984 was not entirely practiced. This study aims to evaluate fire safety measures in selected residential colleges of a Malaysian University, which were built before 1984. This includes occupants’ level of awareness and knowledge of the occupants regarding fire safety measures. This study was conducted in selected residential colleges, built before 1984, which were named as A, B, C, and D Colleges. One new college building was selected to be the control variable, the E College. Survey questionnaires were given to 401 respondents to obtain information regarding the fire safety awareness and knowledge. Fire safety inspections were conducted to determine the level of fire safety protection systems in colleges and the documentation of emergency response plan were reviewed. From the study, the level of fire safety awareness among the occupants were higher compared to their fire safety knowledge. Fire safety inspection result indicated that overall buildings inspected complies with the local regulation while safety documentation reviews were satisfactorily adequate. Overall, the score for fire safety measures in all selected colleges were sufficient and in good condition. This study is significant for those in the field of safety and health practice pertaining to fire safety engineering and regulations, to plan for better and more efficient fire hazard and risk assessment. Keywords - Fire emergency response plan, fire safety awareness, fire safety inspection, fire safety knowledge, residential college. All rights reserved. 1.0 INTRODUCTION Residential colleges and student housing facilities are shelter for students attending a university, and is expected to provide attractive environment, conducive for learning and academic success, appropriate functionality that in compliance with codes or standards, and adequate safety features (Hassanain, 1998). Providing fire-safe facilities involves a comprehensive and well-balanced set of actions consisting of continual fire safety education and awareness programmes for the staff and students, firm adherence to fire safety legislative regulations, adequate fire protection features’ maintenance, and prevention measures to limit potential fire sources and reducing total fuel load that may exist. If the fire safety systems for a facility are designed in accordance with prescriptive regulations, there are likely to be some built-in assumptions regarding fuel load, fire spread potential, fire detection, fire alarm triggering, and occupant evacuation (Meacham, 1999). Besides, it is necessary to ensure that, when a fire occurs, all the safety measures provided will be available for use and will perform satisfactorily (Ramachandran, 1999). The aim of this study was to evaluate fire safety measures in the residential colleges in Universiti Putra Malaysia, built in the year before 1984. Fire safety measures in this context were referred to the active and passive fire protection system existed in the selected residential colleges whether they comply with the Uniform Building By-Law 1984. The second objective was to evaluate the level of awareness and knowledge of the occupants of the residential college, especially the students, regarding fire safety measures. The third objective was to review fire safety documentation regarding the emergency response plan of each selected residential college. December 2019, Vol. 16 No. 2 41