Fire Escape: Human Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics in Fire

1 fire when a person's psychological characteristics

People's psychological characteristics come from the objective environmental characteristics, and will produce specific behaviors under the influence of specific psychological characteristics. When in a special environment such as a fire scene, under the stimulation of flame, smoke, and poisonous gas, people will have a special mentality, manifested in the following aspects:

1.1 Conformity and rebellion

The so-called herd mentality is to treat objective things without starting from reality. What other people do is how they do it themselves. The behavior of herd mentality is: no opinion, with the flow. In the event of a fire, where people run, they follow where they are. Other people's determination and judgment become the targets they follow. They give up their original judgments and blindly follow others and follow the majority, leading to the formation of clusters. Caused riots.

The reverse psychology refers to the psychological phenomenon that runs counter to the development of objective things under certain conditions. Its behavior is: do not do it but do it. Under fire conditions, the doors and windows should not be opened but opened, resulting in the entry of fresh air or dense smoke into the fire, so that the rapid spread of fire or increase the amount of high-temperature smoke; should not rush to the thick smoke area but rushed to the thick smoke area, As a result, he suffocated himself.

1.2 to the ground

Psychology refers to long-term habits. In the event of a fire, people would consciously or unconsciously run downstairs and continue to the ground outdoors. When the fire blocked the exit and there was no way to escape, one of the actions to the ground was to jump off the building. In the fire, many trapped people often jumped down from several floors or even dozens of high-rise buildings. The result was often not dead.

Psychology is the psychological phenomenon of running away from a narrow corner in a fire to avoid smoke and smoke. It often appears as a drilling machine, hiding in a narrow corner. Actually, the act of blasphemy tends to be fierce, with nine deaths and one life. The result of this behavioral phenomenon is mostly tragedy. When the fire occurs, the above-mentioned several kinds of psychology will seriously interfere with self-escape and safe evacuation, so that those trapped in the fire will lose their normal ability to analyze and judge under the influence of external conditions, resulting in irrational and erroneous actions. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate corresponding countermeasures to avoid the above irrational psychology in the fire.

1.3 Fear and despair

People at the scene of the fire, especially those who have not undergone special exercises, easily produce irrepressible fears. This is often called panic. Apart from panic, thinking about the dangers of fire, it would create an extremely disturbing panic-stricken state of mind, bewildered, would like to escape, afraid of choosing a safe passage, and would like to avoid, and do not know where it is a safe place. Especially those who have poor psychological adjustment on weekdays, especially those who know nothing about the evacuation of fire.

The frightened state of mind can also lead to people's non-rational thinking. Non-rational thinking can deepen the mistakes of judgments and cause irrational wrong actions. Faced with the unease and panic of fire, over time, people’s mentality will turn from panic to panic. In the face of heavy smoke and fierce fire, in the face of chaos and commotion among the people, we feel deeply that life will be seriously threatened, resulting in a strong fear of being unable to face casualties. A strong fear of fear and fear will interfere with people's normal thinking, weaken the ability of rational judgment, and lose the spirit and courage to fight with firepower, helplessness or loss of resistance, resulting in despair.

Despair psychology refers to a psychological phenomenon in which the subjective desire and objective facts are very different and the goal is difficult to achieve. In the case of fire, it shows jumping, hiding under the bed, etc.

1.4 Withdrawal and Tendency

Recession psychology is a psychological phenomenon that points out in fear of something. Its performance behavior is: When people encounter smoke and fire, they will flee in the opposite direction. Especially in indoor fires, people always try to run outside. Even those who are in a safe area must avoid the fire in the opposite direction. Some fire scenes fully confirm that the repulsive psychology often makes it difficult for people to escape. Trending psychology refers to people in the dark environment, people often take a trace of light as a sign of hope, and thus a kind of psychological trend toward the light. In the event of a fire, the smoke obscures people's sight or suddenly loses power, the lights go out, throwing people into a dark environment, and everyone feels uncomfortable and afraid immediately. At this time, everyone has a tendency toward escaping with good visibility and bright places. Usually, the party with less smoke and high visibility is far from the fire point. If there is a safe evacuation route, it is undoubtedly correct to escape in the bright direction. However, if this direction is the main direction of the spread of fire, although it can temporarily reduce the harm of smoke and heat, with the passage of time and the development of fire, it may be the most dangerous place here. In actual fire scenes, sometimes a section of a hallway or a staircase is blocked by smoke. In this case, if protective measures are taken to cross this dark area of ​​light, it is hopeful to escape. Therefore, it is not advisable to have pure phototropic properties in a fire situation. The location and direction of avoidance should be carefully determined on the basis of judgment and analysis.

1.5 lucky and impulsive

Fortunately psychological is a mentality that people often appear. When faced with disasters, I would also carelessly believe that things are not so serious or that I have to take the car to the road in front of the mountain. I am not calm and calm in taking measures; luck is the enemy of correct judgment. People in the fire must first rule out this mentality, and do not allow them to interfere with rational thinking and correct judgment. For example, December 8, 1994 Karamay Friendship shop, primary and secondary schools to report performance, 18:20, stage curtains are spaced too close to the light beam light roast, when a teacher asked them not to call students to the principal Go, the principal said, will put out the fire, wait. The staff ran up and grabbed the curtains and pulled them down, but they did not tear off and the fire spread, but the evacuation operation had not yet begun. The curtain was pulled up and it was intended to be reopened after the fire. Students commotion, to maintain order people shouted: "! Keep quiet, sit still" Soon, the audience off, the whole burning curtain fall. There were more than 10 minutes in this period . Because there was no timely evacuation, the most valuable opportunity for escape was delayed. In addition, the chaotic phenomenon later caused a vicious group of casualties.

In the event of a fire, people’s panic attacks and fears and awkwardness caused by the effects of fire, smoke, heat, and poisonous factors most easily cause people to make irrational or blind impulses. Such as jumping, silly, chaos or chaos. The psychological research on the fire has confirmed that running around and screaming will not only trap yourself in a dangerous situation, but will also disturb the calm thinking of others, aggravate the restless mindset of other staff, and lead more people to follow suit, thus enabling the fire scene to People are more confused and difficult to ease and control.

2 Human behavioral characteristics during a fire

The psychology of human beings is dynamic, and the irrational psychology in the fire field often leads to erroneous judgments and irrational wrong behaviors. Mainly in the following aspects:

2.1 Phototaxis

In the event of a fire, smoke obscures people's sight or suddenly loses power at night. The lights go out and the fire is dark. Everyone immediately feels uncomfortable and afraid. At this time, everyone has a tendency toward escaping with good visibility and bright places. In general, there is less smoke and the party with high visibility is far from the fire point. If there is a safe evacuation route, it is undoubtedly correct to escape in the bright direction. However, if there is no safe evacuation route or the main direction of the spread of fire in this direction, although the smoke and heat hazards can be temporarily mitigated, over time, this light may become the most dangerous place. In actual fire scenes, sometimes a section of a corridor or a staircase is blocked by smoke and fire. If self-protective measures are taken and decisively rush through this dark area, escape may be of great interest.

Therefore, it is not advisable to have mere phototropism in a fire situation. The location and direction of avoidance should be carefully determined on the basis of the judgment analysis.

2.2 Returnability

Guests in public gathering places are not familiar with the geographical environment, and there is little understanding of the evacuation routes. When a fire breaks out, they usually only rely on their own usual channels to escape. The vast majority of people rushed toward the route they used to return to escape. This feature is called returnability. Return is a characteristic that people naturally produce under the condition of strange geographical environment. If the passage is clear, it is a better escape route; if the passage is blocked by fireworks, they will immediately feel that they have no way to escape, thus losing their fighting spirit and seriously affecting the smooth escape.

2.3 Suspension

In a fire, in the presence of fire, smoke, heat, and poison, people tend to evade the direction of not seeing smoke and flames. Therefore, the escape is focused only on the dangerous situation and becomes a simple action that only solves the immediate emergency. Under the control of intentionality, the eagerness to escape from the fire area led to arbitrary aimless running or escaping into the ground, drilling into the bed under the temporary smoke, under the table, toilets, toilets, etc., or even upstairs. Jump off and so on. Doing so often delays the timing of self-escape and sends itself to a more dangerous situation. In fact, the fire, the bed, the table and the chair are all first flammable combustibles. The door of the restroom without any protective measures is also flammable, and the smoke, heat, and poison are also enough to make people unable to endure or die. There are indeed places and methods for sheltering in the event of a fire, but they must be implemented under the protection of effective measures. Otherwise, the opposite result will be obtained.

2.4 Flow

It can also be called clustering or conformity. People generally have the courage to be more courageous, have more people to rely on, and have a sense of security. Therefore, conformity with the big stream is the habitual tendency that occurs most easily in the event of an emergency. The people in public places were originally unconnected and unorganized. At the time of confusion, although they were not familiar with each other, they all thought that they could rely on each other. This kind of natural assembly atmosphere formed without any instruction or hinting tends to become stronger and stronger. However, due to the formation of such groups, everyone is uneasy and has blindness. Therefore, under normal circumstances, it is extremely easy to blindly follow the wrong information or instructions and move to a more dangerous situation.

2.5 Confusion

Confusion often results from the random running of several people, which in turn has a strong influence on people around them and induces even greater confusion. Psychology believes that the emotional state of a group will change with the optimism or pessimism or fear of someone in the group. From the point of view that irrational psychology can infect each other, crowds of people are more likely to generate and infect pessimism. Groups with prevailing pessimism are also the most vulnerable to abnormal behavior. The state of chaos in a fire is extremely detrimental. It can seriously interfere with people's normal thinking, cause irrational actions, interfere with normal guided evacuation and firefighting.

2.6 Intentionality

Intentionality is a tendency to control one's behavior by subjective thoughts. Intentionality mostly occurs in introverted people. When a fire occurs, they are not familiar with the means and route of escape, but have little knowledge of the actual situation of the fire, but blindly guide themselves by subjective or unrealistic illusions. Action. Such people are most reluctant to follow the advice and command of others on the fire, and thus often fall into the most dangerous situation. Therefore, in the event of a fire, it is most desirable to obey the command of the personnel inside the fire site and calmly judge the actual fire situation.

3 , conclusion

Fire accidents in public gathering places often result in group deaths and injuries. In order to avoid this phenomenon, in addition to establishing and improving fire safety regulations, implementing fire safety responsibility systems, and improving the fire safety measures of buildings themselves, Strengthen the fire safety training and education for employees and residents of various units and organize them to learn relevant fire safety knowledge, so that in the event of a sudden fire, they have good psychological qualities, eliminate irrational psychological and wrong actions, and then improve the units and Individuals' ability to resist fire and self-rescue.

The information in this article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.