Classification of hotels taking into account fire risks

Introduction. The current Russian Regulation on classification of hotels hardly takes into account their fire safety conditions. The system, adopted in the Regulation, provides for an expert scoring assessment of hotel parameters for their assignment to a certain category (star rating). The purpose of the article is to develop methods that allow determining the level of fire safety of hotels in points commensurate with the accepted rating system, for its further use in the course of assignment of appropriate categories to hotels. Theoretical fundamentals of scoring methods of assessment of fire safety of hotels. Three approaches to the calculation of «fire points» of hotels have been developed, based on the breakdown of hotels into classes and identification of the fire safety index of hotels within one class. The first scoring method is the Gretener method used for calculating the integral fire safety index. The first and third quartiles are identified for the hotel statistics. Hotels, whose index does not exceed the first quartile, belong to the subgroup featuring a high level of fire safety; those ranging from the first (inclusively) to the third quartile belong to the medium level. If the values of the fire hazard index of hotels are not smaller than the third quartile, they belong to the subgroup that has a low level of fire safety. The second method is based on the use of a «safety reserve» in terms of evacuation time. The third model of assessing the fire hazard of hotels includes the breakdown of hotels into groups, identification of the value of individual fire risk, ranking hotels by the fire risk that varies from the lowest to the highest. Results and their discussion. As for the classification of hotels, problems that accompany the consolidation of the physical approach to the fire hazard assessment with the expert method of scoring are solved by choosing the proportion between the points of the system and the «fire points» set by the adjustment coefficient. The fire points, assigned to the subgroups of hotels, are indicative and should be corrected within the framework of the proposed approach. Conclusions. The experimental application of the developed methods using the cases of real hotel facilities will allow choosing the optimal engineering method of taking into account the fire safety of hotels in the process of their classification.