抄録
On November 17, 1998, a fire broke out at a hotel (Tenzankaku) in the Shirahama hot spring resort, in Wakayama prefecture. When the hotel fire occurred, there were 78 people in the hotel and they were not injured, fortunately. To discover how they could escape to safety, a questionnaire survey was carried out about hotel employees' action. The results of the survey are as follows : (1) The main factor for sensing an unusual occurrence was to smell something burning and for perceiving fire was to see smoke propagation in the hotel. (2) Among the initial action taken by employees after perception of fire, it was to determine the fire condition and to transmit the information to other people. (3) It took an average of 22 minutes from sensing an unusual occurrence to perceiving fire for employee to fulfil the evacuation guidelines. On the other hand, in the case of employees not fulfilling the said guidelines, it took an average 17 minutes.
