2012 Volume 63 Issue 1 Pages 1-8
A tsunami refuge building has been requiring the structural resistance to an earthquake and a tsunami. However, a fire fueled by hazardous materials and houses flowed by tsunami may break out in the flooded area. Therefore, there is a concern for another risk that such a fire due to tsunami will spread to a tsunami refuge building.
The purpose of this study is to present basic data for understanding the risk of tsunami-fire to a tsunami refuge building through case study. In this paper, we analyzed a few cases of fires which had occurred in the vicinity of tsunami refuge buildings in Kesen-numa, Miyagi Prefecture, in the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011), based on the image records and the evacuees’ testimonies. As a result, we obtained the three types of fires : (1) a mass of fires floating and drifting on seawater fueled by floating timber observed around a public hall ; (2) fires surrounding a nursing home fueled by a mass of houses and broken pieces arriving by tsunami ; and (3) A fire fueled by a neighboring building surviving tsunami non-flowed out observed around a hotel.
