Book excerpt: This Guide provides information on special topics that affect the fire safety performance of very tall buildings, their occupants and first responders during a fire. This Guide addresses these topics as part of the overall building design process using performance-based fire protection engineering concepts as described in the SFPE Engineering Guide to Performance Based Fire Protection. This Guide is not intended to be a recommended practice or a document that is suitable for adoption as a code. The Guide pertains to “super tall,” “very tall” and “tall” buildings. Throughout this Guide, all such buildings are called “very tall buildings.” These buildings are characterized by heights that impose fire protection challenges; they require special attention beyond the protection features typically provided by traditional fire protection methods. This Guide does not establish a definition of buildings that fall within the scope of this document.