British Columbia Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers

The development of more sophisticated networks for fire alarm and

communications systems may have widened the gap between the manufacturer

and the electrical engineer/fire protection engineer responsible for defining the

project requirements and articulating this is the design and specifications. The

complexity of codes and standards also makes this an increasing challenge for manufacturers, engineers and authorities.

Donald Brown has spent the last 30 years in the fire alarm industry. He worked his

way up through the technical side of various fire alarm companies including

Edwards and Siemens.

He was has acted as the Branch Sales manager for Siemens and is now in Siemens

Control Products and Systems in the position of Western Canadian Territory

Manager. Don is a founding member of the Canadian Fire Alarm Association BC

Chapter and is currently the CFAA secretary in BC.

The assessment of fire risk in municipalities and grading of public fire protection services have a long history in Canada and the USA. Towns and cities are mapped and assessed in terms of their impact on fire risk on behalf of the Canadian insurance community. The actual fire risk reflects the relationship of risks and how spatial separation, construction and other factors manifest themselves at the block level and beyond. The aim is quantify the degree to which the public fire protection resources would be effective in controlling fully involved structure fires and conflagrations..

The various factors considered in developing the grading/classification of infrastructure and related services have evolved to address development in outlying areas, the provision of sprinklers -to offset the distribution of fire halls- seismic risk and other factors. The assessment of water supplies in various jurisdictions is relatively complex and may not be fully understood by those fire protection engineers more focussed on individual construction projects.

The understanding of municipal fire strategies is important as it provides a context for other measures such as building regulations, sprinkler system water supplies and fire risk control in individual properties including risks with private supplies.

Michael Currie of Fire Underwriters Survey will address how municipal risks are changing and how the fire department, water supplies and other aspects of the grading system have evolved to reflect the needs in 2015.

Speaker

After joining the IAO in 1999, Michael worked with the BC Ministry of Finance Universities, Colleges and Institutes Protection Program (UCIPP) as well as the Schools Protection Program (SPP) and the Canadian University Reciprocal Insurance Exchange (CURIE) programs.  In 2002 Michael began evaluating municipal jurisdictions for their fire risk and public fire protection programs.  After the IAO group of companies was purchased by CGI, Michael worked on the development of a new digital model of fire insurance grading.  Now the National Technical Director, Michael continues to be the architect of the new, digital Canadian Fire Insurance Grading Index.

Date: November 10, 2015
Time: Registration and Reception 5:30pm

Location: Langara Golf Clubhouse, 6706 Alberta St, Vancouver, BC
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: November 6, 2015

NOTE: CHANGE OF VENUE

 Empire Landmark Hotel

 1400 Robson St, Vancouver, BC V6G 1B9

The reconstruction of fire scenarios using modelling and other techniques is not new. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been employed for some years now in the design of fire protection systems as part of the fire and life safety design of buildings, in particular smoke control. Property protection is also an important consideration, where large fires can have a devastating impact on business continuity and be the result of long and expensive legal enquiries.

CFD is now also used routinely in fire forensics, where knowledge of the fire risks and fire protection systems in such situations is essential in the analysis of the fire, and the forensic team has to bring different skill sets to the production of the forensic report. In these often detailed and complex cases, CFD may be but one component of the overall analysis, fitting into a wider probabilistic analysis. Here, event tree modelling can play a very important role, allowing the relative importance of various factors, e.g. sprinkler system failure, to be quantified. CFD may be employed as a ‘calibration’ tool, examining a sub-set of critical scenarios in detail.

Mike van Geyn of Firestance Professional Services Ltd and John Ivison and Associates have spent almost 3 years working on two vintage wood frame buildings in the lower mainland. The first building had property use issues, rodent infestations, mould, plumbing leaks and remediation issues associated with asbestos containing materials. The decision by the Owners was to replace the plumbing systems and the building boilers/plumbing fixtures, kitchen and bathroom cabinets etc. Existing patches in fire separations had to be fire tested.