Simulating Pre-Evacuation Behavior In a Virtual Fire Environment

The rapid progress in the virtual reality(VR) technology present new opportunities for researchers in areas that are difficult, dangerous or expensive to study in the real world. The authors take advantage of the commercial availability of these VR devices to build a high-rise building fire escape which providing a highly immersive VR simulation game approach, designed to simulate pre-evacuation human reactions in fire emergencies. We replicated this fire scene in our virtual environment (VE) using Unity3D game engine and the HTC Vive head mounted VR display. The results gathered from this virtual simulation were compared to the data from real fire condition to test the effectiveness of the information provided from this VE. Subjective responses show that our simulation-based VR was effective, realistic, and engaging. Overall, the study results confirm the efficacy of the VR technology for research on people's pre-evacuation behavior under fire