# A BIM-Based Smart System for Fire Evacuation
###### Abstract  
Building fires constitute a significant threat that affects property, the environment, and human health. The management of this risk requires an efficient fire evacuation system for buildings' occupants. Therefore, a smart fire evacuation system that combines building information modeling (BIM) and smart technologies is proposed. The system provides the following capacities: (i) early fire detection; (ii) the evaluation of environmental data; (iii) the identification of the best evacuation path; and (iv) information for occupants about the best evacuation routes. The system was implemented in a research building at Lille University in France. The results show the system's capacities and benefits, particularly for the identification of the best evacuation paths.  
fire; BIM; Fire Dynamic Simulation (FDS); evacuation; building safety +
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a fire emergency and the building's safety. For example, the IoT was used to monitor the temperature and smoke and carbon dioxide levels indoors [23; 24; 25] and the indoor location of a building's occupants [26]. The IoT was also used to shut down critical equipment, such as the power supply, and turn on sprinklers [27; 28]. In addition, some scholars used AI to identify the source of the fire [29] and rapid evacuation routes [30].  
The FDS tool has been used to visualize the fire's growth and simulate the spread of substances in a given time interval. [PERSON] (2016) [31] highlighted the FDS tool's potential to: (1) plan the location of fire detectors; (2) illustrate the fire's spread; (3) predict the fire; and (4) determine the evacuation routes. [PERSON] et al. (2017) and [PERSON] (2020) [32; 33] presented a numerical fire and evacuation simulation for buildings. They showed that coupling FDS and ABS provides a reasonable estimation of the evacuation time [34; 35]. [PERSON] et al. (2019) [29] developed a real-time indoor location system by combining BIM, Bluetooth connectivity, and a mobile application. The system automatically evaluates evacuation scenarios using real-time sensor data as well as simulation capacities. [PERSON] et al. (2019) [17] developed a BIM-based simulation framework that combines FDS and ABS. It permits the simulation of a fire's spread and evacuation scenarios for several building layouts.  
Previous research did not develop a comprehensive solution for the evacuation of a building's occupants during a fire. To fill this gap, in this article we present and discuss a smart system for fire evacuation management that is inspired by the smart building concept. It uses BIM for the spatial modeling of the building and the fire evacuation system. The basic layers of smart systems, including the monitoring layer, the data processing and analysis layer, the control layer, and the smart services layer, were used. The system uses FDS and ABS to determine the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET).  
This remainder of this article is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the methodology and materials used in this study and the architecture of the proposed smart system for fire evacuation management. Section 3 presents the application of the smart fire evacuation system to a research building at Lille University. Section 4 provides our conclusions.