Posted By sagalout John, are you asking a different question than the matters covered in section 4 of the guides on Fire Safety Risk Assessment? If you haven't looked at these find them at http://www.communities.gov.uk Section 4 in each of the different guides is "further guidance on escape routes" and includes information on doors.

Posted By sagalout I think the answer is there but I am reading it as a practitioner and engineer, not as a fire safety specialist. It tells you that a 750mm door can accommodate "x" people in the three different risk categories and repeats this for 1050mm doors. It goes on further down the page to tell you that if you have two or more exits you must always assume the widest has been compromised. So the principle for me is that the safe MAXIMUM that a 750mm door/ safe route can accommodate is 120 persons in a low risk environment. Of course this may be reduced by the other factors covered in the guide. Hopefully one of the other guys who regularly respond to fire questions will put us right if we have misread it?

Posted By Steven John Are you getting too deep into this issue, why do you need to know how many people can go through a certain size door at a certain frequency (i.e. 120 people per minute for a 750mm door) I believe the guidance gives you enough information to establish if your existing escape routes are wide enough and if you have sufficient quantities. Your fire drills will establish whether the time to evacuate the building is sufficient, we look at having total evacuation in 2 minutes of the alarm being sounded. I do hope you manage to get the answer you are looking for, I'm sure someone will know the answer. Steve Steve

Posted By JohnR Hi again. Thanks to all that have taken the time to answer my quandary. The reason for all of this mental anguish is quite simple really. A local converted cinema, now used for various and differing functions etc, had a maximum occupancy level put upon it by its examining Fire Officer. With this information, it obtained its operating Licence. This of course related to the size and number of available exits. Quite recently, another examining Fire Officer has made the statement the the total number of acceptable occupants is now considerably lower. With nothing changed from the original assessment, made by his colleague. This is why we now need to have an understanding of how many people can be safely expected to pass through a given door size. JohnR