Fire evacuation emergency lighting and fire safety evacuation indication signs shall be provided in the clean operating department.

Studies on human behavior in fires have shown that when people encounter a fire, they become extremely panicked and lose control of their behavior, developing psychological responses such as moving toward light, following the crowd, habitual thinking, fear, and rushing toward open spaces. As a result, during a fire—especially when there is a large amount of smoke and the normal power supply is interrupted—people are often unable to find the correct escape route, delaying precious evacuation time and resulting in casualties. Even well-trained fire rescue personnel find it difficult to quickly locate safety exits and evacuation routes in relatively complex buildings if there are no clear and definite luminous indication signs to guide them. This is unfavorable both to the rapid launch of rescue operations and to the safety of the rescuers themselves.

In emergencies such as fires, how to enable people to evacuate safely to a safe location outside the building in the shortest possible time should be regarded as a key focus of building fire protection design.

Fire emergency lighting includes fire evacuation emergency lighting and the lighting required for surgical sites where operations must continue during a fire. The provision of fire evacuation emergency lighting and fire safety evacuation indication signs is mainly to ensure that, in the event of a fire, people can promptly identify the evacuation location and direction and evacuate smoothly and rapidly along the lights or other luminous evacuation indication signs. Therefore, the installation height of these facilities should avoid being blocked by decorative items or by smoke during a fire, and they should not be installed on movable objects or on door or window leaves.

Evacuation emergency lighting fixtures should generally be installed at a position about 2.0m above the ground, above evacuation exits, evacuation corridors, or safety exits. According to the provisions of the Code for Fire Protection Design of Buildings and the Code for Fire Protection Design of High-rise Civil Buildings, the average illuminance value on the floor should not be lower than 1lx.

Practical applications in China and abroad have shown that the proper arrangement of evacuation indication signs plays an important role in the safe evacuation of occupants. Evacuation indication signs are mainly divided into two major types: the photoluminescent type (such as the light-storing self-luminous type) and the electroluminescent type (such as the lamp type and the electronic display type). According to the requirements of relevant building fire protection codes, it is necessary to install the electroluminescent type at exits, at turns of passageways, and along the passageways. At the same time, installing luminous evacuation indication signs on the floor of evacuation corridors and main evacuation routes, or on walls near the floor, can play a very good role in safe evacuation and can more effectively help people evacuate. However, photoluminescent evacuation indication signs are generally used as auxiliary evac evacuation indication signs.

At present, fire safety facilities in buildings have very prominent problems in both design and maintenance management, which is one of the main factors causing casualties in fires. In the event of a fire, since the normal power supply is interrupted, evacuation of occupants and external firefighting rely mainly on the fire safety evacuation indication signs and emergency lighting installed in the building. In practice, the most prominent problems with fire safety evacuation indication signs lie in their installation, such as inappropriate selection of sign models, incorrect installation positions, improper construction methods, use in wrong locations, lack of maintenance of installed signs, and many sign boards not manufactured in accordance with relevant standard requirements, such as writing "evacuation exit" as "safety exit", or "safety exit" as "emergency exit" or "evacuation opening", etc. All of these have, to varying degrees, weakened the effectiveness of safety signs and prevented them from playing their due role.

Therefore, when installing these signs, they should also be used in accordance with the requirements and specifications of national standards on fire safety signs, such as the national standard Fire Safety Signs (GB13495-92), Fire Safety Signs and Requirements for Setting of Fire Safety Signs (GB15630-1995).

[Reference] Fire safety evacuation indication signs. Fire safety evacuation indication signs are divided, according to their luminescence principle, into two types: electroluminescent type and photoluminescent type. The photoluminescent type includes the lamp type and the electronic display type. The photoluminescent type includes the light-storing type, fluorescent type, retroemissive type, etc.; according to their use, they are divided into exit signs, directional signs, diversion signs, prohibition signs, etc.

Figure 10.5 Sign board

① Sign boards (ordinary type, light-storing type, fluorescent type, retroreflective type, etc., see Figure 10.5), sign lamps, evacuation guidance strips, etc. These signs have played a certain role in preventing the occurrence of fires, effectively maintaining fire protection facilities, ensuring that evacuation passages remain unobstructed, instructing people to give the alarm promptly when a fire occurs, enabling them to find firefighting equipment promptly and conveniently to extinguish the fire and rescue themselves, effectively indicating evacuation routes so as to reduce loss of life and property, and preventing the occurrence of catastrophic incidents such as mass deaths and injuries.

② "Luminous sign" products come in many types, such as electronic display type, lamp type, light-storing type, etc.

③ Light-storing self-luminous material is a new type of material that can store energy in the event of a power failure and release it in the form of light in darkness. Light-storing self-luminous evacuation indication signs can use vivid graphics and text to indicate intuitive information such as exit routes, stairs and floors, safety exits, evacuation exits, firefighting equipment, evacuation warnings or prohibition notices; therefore, they are highly suitable for use as safety evacuation indications and other signs inside buildings.

④ For legends of fire safety sign installation, see Figure 10.6.