A standard double fire door is roughly 1.5 m.
Planning aid based on recognised crowd-safety guidance — not a substitute for a professional crowd risk assessment, formal egress calculation, or local regulations.
We estimate flow using the widely-cited rate of roughly 80 people per metre of effective exit width per minute on level routes, then divide your crowd by the total flow to get a clearance time. The 8-minute figure is the long-standing benchmark for emptying an assembly space.
Most crowd deaths happen at bottlenecks, not in open space. If your exits can't move people out faster than they pile up in an emergency, pressure builds at the doors — the exact condition that causes a crush. Exit width, not floor area, is usually the real limit on a safe crowd.
- Always provide at least two independent, well-separated exits — never one way out.
- Keep every exit route clear, unlocked and lit the whole time people are inside.
- Treat this as a first check — a formal egress calculation is still needed for a real event.