Fire Risks over the Full Lifecycle of Low-Temperature Facilities: Characteristics, Challenges, and Hazard Identification

In recent years, the rapid expansion of low-temperature facilities—such as cold storage and indoor ice and snow venues—has underscored their pronounced vulnerability to fire, as evidenced by multiple severe incidents. Due to their distinct environmental conditions, existing theoretical frameworks, technical approaches, and standards exhibit limited applicability. Consequently, the fire risk characteristics of such facilities remain insufficiently defined, and systematic methods for hazard identification and assessment are lacking. This study conducts a detailed analysis of fire incident data from representative low-temperature facilities to identify the fire risk characteristics across all lifecycle stages, including construction, renovation and expansion, operation, maintenance, and demolition. An integrated framework combining the WBS/RBS (Work Breakdown Structure/Risk Breakdown Structure) matrix and complex network (CN) methods is then proposed to establish a structured methodology for full lifecycle fire hazard identification and classification. The results address critical gaps, including the absence of clearly defined lifecycle fire risk profiles and a robust scientific basis for hazard identification, and provide a technical foundation for lifecycle fire risk management in low-temperature facilities.