Mitigation of post-earthquake fire risk to building structures

Fire following an earthquake can lead to damage to buildings and life-line structures. In performance-based design approach structural behavior under normal load and multi-hazard scenarios including ground-shaking, and the fire should be considered in high seismic zones. However, the current design codes and standards do not consider the post-earthquake fire and a design scenario, which leaves many buildings in high seismic areas vulnerable. Although there is a significant volume of analytical and experimental studies on structural behavior under fire and earthquakes are available, separately, there is a clear lack of research on their combined effect. The paper discusses these issues and outlines the methods of estimating and mitigating the risk associated with such events.