1860年2月，纽约一场致命公寓火灾成为了外部防火梯制度的起点。1 这场发生在一所六层公寓楼地下面包店的火灾造成10人丧生，其中部分原因是消防梯只能到达四楼。1 事件发生后，纽约通过了《防止城市不安全建筑法案》，规定所有公寓楼必须配备防火通道或其他外部疏散手段。1 从此，外部防火梯成为美国城市建筑的标准配置，这一做法持续了近150年。
然而，随着时间推移，外部防火梯的效能遭到质疑。1 1881年，费城富兰克林学会的科学研究得出结论，认为外部防火梯的价值"相对较小"，并建议依靠内部楼梯进行疏散。1 这一学术建议在1911年三角衬衫工厂大火中得到了悲剧性的验证——该场火灾中，外部防火梯在逃离工人的重压下坍塌，导致140多人丧生。1 1923年，全国防火协会随之建议禁止使用外部楼梯作为防火梯。1 最终，到了1968年，纽约在更新建筑规范时正式禁止在新建工程中使用外部出口，转而采用内部防火楼梯的设计方案。1
External fire escapes, once considered a standard safety solution for urban apartment buildings, gradually fell out of favor over more than a century as evidence mounted that they were ineffective and dangerous. The shift from external to internal evacuation routes represents a significant evolution in fire safety building codes across the United States.1
The impetus for widespread adoption of fire escapes came after a devastating 1860 fire in New York. A blaze in the basement of a six-story apartment building claimed ten lives, with the death toll compounded by the fact that the available fire ladder could only reach the fourth floor.1 In response, New York enacted the Prevention of Unsafe Building in Cities Act, mandating that all apartment buildings be equipped with fire escapes or other external means of evacuation.1
However, scientific scrutiny and real-world disasters soon revealed serious flaws. An 1881 study by the Franklin Institute concluded that external fire escapes had "relatively little value" and recommended relying instead on internal stairwells.1 Thirty years later, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 provided tragic confirmation: an external fire escape collapsed under the weight of fleeing workers, contributing to a death toll exceeding 140.1 By 1923, the National Fire Protection Association formally recommended prohibiting the use of external staircases as fire escapes.1
The final regulatory shift came in 1968, when New York updated its building code to ban external exits from new construction, replacing them with interior fireproofed stairwells.1 This formal prohibition codified what experts had long advocated—a return to the internal evacuation design that had been suggested a century earlier.
评论
还没有评论，欢迎留下第一条。