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- Title
Burning biases: Mitigating cognitive biases in fire engineering.
- Authors
Kinsey, Michael J.; Kinateder, Max; Gwynne, Steven M. V.; Hopkin, Danny
- Abstract
Summary Fire engineering has developed into a mainstream engineering discipline within the building design process. Building fire codes are increasingly complex, comprising thousands of requirements regarding a wide range of topics that must be considered. Fire engineers are required to possess increasingly complex knowledge about a variety of subjects, along with expertise in their application. This has been magnified with the proliferation of performance‐based methods using a range of computational tools. This coupled with increased project performance pressures, raises the potential for errors in judgment. Errors in judgment may be caused by limitations in a given resource (e.g. time, information available, knowledge, etc) and/or neglect/over‐focus on specific information (at the expense of other and more relevant information) through cognitive biases. This paper initially provides a broad overview of general decision‐making, including the use of heuristics and cognitive biases. Examples of cognitive biases are presented which may be linked to errors in fire engineer decision‐making. This study considers several fire engineering decision contexts where cognitive biases may exist which are associated with fire code application, modeling/calculations, probabilistic risk assessments, general fire engineering practice, and perceptions based on experience. Potential measures to mitigate some of these biases and prompt better decision‐making are discussed. Those that may benefit from awareness of such biases and mitigation measures include not only practicing fire engineers, but also building developers, fire code committees, evacuation/fire/structural fire modeling developers, approving authorities, and fire engineering researchers/students.
- Subjects
FIRE protection engineering; COGNITIVE bias; CIVILIAN evacuation; FIRE prevention laws; HAZARD mitigation; DECISION making
- Publication
Fire & Materials, 2021, Vol 45, Issue 4, p543
- ISSN
0308-0501
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/fam.2824