|
WITH TWO key events on the ‘fire calendar’ coming up next month – the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) international conference and exhibition, and the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA) summer conference – this month’s edition looks forward to both events by focusing on some of the current moves and areas of thinking in fire engineering and fire and rescue.
On the fire engineering design front, for example, there are two case studies exploring the challenges faced by fire engineers in quantifying fire and risk scenarios and developing innovative performance-based designs.
The project for a major car rental facility at Miami Airport in Florida will deliver the first multi-level vehicle fuelling system in the USA. However, various fire and life safety issues had to be addressed in the ‘risk-informed’ approach that was adopted.
The second case study – covering the conversion of a Victorian warehouse to a hotel apartment – provides a good example of how the basic principles of fire engineering form the keystones for design. The article also underlines the advances that have been made in fire engineering over the last decade, particularly in computational fluid dynamics modelling software to support design assumptions.
Some of the key issues facing UK fire and rescue services are also examined this month, and will no doubt be high on the agenda at the forthcoming IFE and CFOA events – from the ongoing debate on the service’s role in and response to inland flooding, to the need to build leadership capacity to deliver the continuing cultural and organisational changes in the service, now three years into modernisation.
We also hear from new CFOA president, Charlie Hendry, as he outlines the Association’s current priorities – getting clarity on the overall governance arrangements for UK fire and rescue services, and renewing the way in which operational guidance for brigades is developed. ‘Without a clear and robust system for operational risk management at strategic and tactical level,’ he asks, ‘can we really be assured that health and safety is being addressed properly?’
Hopefully, then, this edition will prove an appetiser for some of the issues to be discussed at the IFE and CFOA conferences, both of which are previewed this month.
|