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.
Professor Lovegrove this week was a key note speaker at the annual fire protection association of Australia national conference in Adelaide. It was a fantastic conference, well attended with some wonderful speakers. We have always had a lot of time for the fire engineering profession. It is noble work that has a critical impact. Kim Lovegroves paper on point is linked below and we recommend the paper to anyone in the engineering field.
The presentation will review recent work by the Foundation to identify the emerging issues facing fire safety that are relevant to fire protection engineering. Recent projects to address those issues will be summarized, including work on lithium ion batteries and other storage protection challenges, data center detection, evacuation from tall buildings, and an overview of our fire service related research. An update on SFPE strategic initiatives will also be presented.
In response to recent fires in construction, Forestry Innovation Investment (FII) commissioned a study of fire risk in different types of construction. CFT Engineering were awarded the contract and completed their report early in 2012.
Brad Walton and his team will present the findings of their report which included case studies and consultation with various industry stakeholders including WorkSafe BC. The study will present the findings including recommendations and associated changes to the BC Fire and Building Codes.
Good and bad practice in the use of small and large scale fire testing and relevance to fire protection engineering.
In the last 50 years there have been significant product and fire testing developments. However, there is still much abuse of fire testing data by manufacturers and others. Test management is important to achieving an acceptable outcome.
Mike van Geyn will present his own perspective on the situation and his recent role in Indicative Fire Testing to help facilitate building and other authority approvals. Mike van Geyn is the former manager of the Inertek Fire Laboratory and Principal in Fire Stance Professional Services.
Date: November 27, 2012
Time: Registration and Reception 5:30
Location: False Creek Yacht Club (1661 Granville Street)
Cost: $25 Please bring cash or a cheque payable to BC Society of Fire Protection Engineers
Registration Deadline: November 23, 2012
Free parking is available in the Yacht Club parking lot.
Fire modeling has now more than three decades worth of development. Apart from its use in universities, the primary uses have been for design and for fire investigation purposes. The present status, however, in these two application areas is very different. It is shown that, after an early start, application of advanced fire modeling towards design purposes is currently very limited. Furthermore, it is not realistic that an upswing might be expected in the short term. By contrast, fire modeling use is growing extremely rapidly in the fire investigation area. The limitation there is that, while the work done at governmental laboratories and national institutes invariably has been of high quality, the record in the private sector is spotty. Furthermore, it is of concern that the trend towards making the fire models more versatile, user-friendly, and graphically-realistic is actually encouraging misuses of the models. This presentation will assess the current shortcomings of fire modelling in fire investigation and possible solutions to this dilemma.
