Welcome to the Web page for the British Columbia Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. This webpage is for members of the chapter and for those interested in fire protection engineering in British Columbia.
The prevention of fire and explosions in dusty occupancies has been studied for over a century and consequently, the mechanisms of fire and explosions are well understood. The key codes and standards set out good practices to prevent and mitigate the impact of fires and explosions in various processes but relatively few professionals are experienced in conducting a complete analysis of the actual conditions in real manufacturing plants. John Bachynski B.Sc. P.Eng. will present an overview of factors leading to dust explosions and summarise state of the art approaches to explosion prevention and systems to mitigate the damage that can otherwise result.
On Tuesday September 30, the BC chapter was graced with the presence of speaker Alexander Maranghides from NIST, and special visitor Vyto Babrauskas- formerly of NIST- who accompanied him from Seattle. The presentation drew many members, including representatives from the insurance community.
The effect of forest fires on fire risk in communities is rarely defined or assessed on a relative scale. While fire modelling of structural fires is reasonably well developed for certain fire scenarios, the modelling of wildfires is in its infancy. In his recent SFPE articles Alexander Maranghides presented a new indexing approach to assessing the wild fire risk to communities. The method takes the various parameters that determine fire spread in wild fire situations- such as topography, ground cover, separation, construction etc.- and assigned it a relative index.
The analysis of fires to determine fire cause and account for the physical evidence as well as accounts of what transpired leading up to and during the fire event has often relied on experience and known patterns of fire behaviour for various types of fires. Over the last 20 years the use of fire science and investigation techniques have developed to the point thatanalysis of large fires relies increasingly on correlation of the predicted fire behaviour with the actual observed or recorded information from witnesses, responding agencies such as the fire service etc.
Peter Senez and others from the Sereca fire team will present an overview of these techniques illustrated by actual examples taken from real cases.
A future session may be held should there be further interest in the application of CFD modelling to support complex investigations where replication of fire behaviour in particular cases is possible.
Date: February 18, 2014 Time: Registration and Reception 5:30pm Location: False Creek Yacht Club (1661 Granville Street) Cost: Members - $30; Non-members $35. Please bring cash or a cheque payable to BC Society of Fire Protection Engineers to cover the cost of dinner. Registration Deadline: February 14, 2014
Free parking is available in the Yacht Club parking lot.
