Single Stair Residential Buildings - A Data-Driven Discussion

Continuing for Fall 2025: Electronic PDHs will be available to Chapter members at no cost for virtual presentations.  If you are not a current member you may still enjoy the presentation at no charge, or pay $10 at registration to be granted a PDH.

This is an online event.  You must join from a computer, no dial-in only information is available. The meeting details will be made available when you register. 

Many jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada are increasing the allowable height of single-stair mid-rise residential buildings to address housing shortages. Given the imminent need for housing and the length of the code consensus process, some jurisdictions are legislatively making changes to increase the height of these structures; however, how does this affect the ability of occupants to evacuate? And how does this impact firefighter operations? The purpose of this presentation is to present a data-driven approach to help answer these questions.   

LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES:

• Understand the types of single-stair residential buildings permitted by the U.S. building codes today.
• Summarize the proponents' and opponents' perspectives on single-stair mid-rise residential buildings.
• Share data behind the fire events and equipment reliability.
• Describe how risk can be used to evaluate different single-stair mid-rise building geometries. 

Presenter: Kyle Christiansen – Senior Fire & Life Safety Engineer at Crux Consulting

Kyle is a license fire protection engineer with 13 years of experience in the nuclear, industrial, energy, and commercial sectors. His areas of expertise include probabilistic risk analysis (PRA), fire hazards analysis (FHA), hazard mitigation analysis (HMA), and quantitative risk assessments (QRA). Kyle has provided prescriptive code compliance evaluations as well as performance-based design solutions using modeling and risk analysis to inform decision making.