Fire Engineering is a discipline used to maximise the safety of a building, structure, group of people or environment from the dangerous, harmful effects of fire and smoke. As a term, fire engineering covers all the stages of protecting things from fire from the early detection of possible fires to the fighting of the fire itself, from the design of buildings that minimise fire risk to the evacuation of people and property who are at risk of danger as a result of a fire.
Modern developments and buildings should have the safety of those involved with it as one of its highest priorities. By applying modern construction techniques alongside the design skills of an architect, structures can be built which will lead to a very minimal fire risk to the occupants of the structure.
Early Examples
One of the earliest known examples of fire engineering comes from Rome in mid-July of the year 64AD. The emperor at the time was Nero, and caused awful destruction on a massive scale to the city of Rome. There are many different accounts for how the fire started, ranging from an urban street fire caused by Christians to purposeful arson by men sent out by Emperor Nero himself. After six days the fire was brought under control and could eventually be put out. Following the dreadful destruction that the fire brought to Rome, the city had to be rebuilt. This is where Fire Engineering seems to originate from. The city was rebuilt with non-flammable materials and buildings were spaced much further apart in order to minimise the travel of flames from one building to another.
Fire Engineering seemed largely ignored for a while, until it remerged again in the early 20th century, as a response to the many fire-related problems that were caused by the Industrial Revolution in England’s growing cities. Large factories and spinning mills needed protecting from the risk of fire, and so fire engineering was reborn into the development of building projects. It can also be argued that during the 20th century, the growth of the insurance industry also brought with it the market for fire engineering, as people could be charged less for insurance if they had legitimately made steps to protect their property from fire and smoke.
Suppliers
At FDSConsult, specialist fire engineering consultants will bring experience and knowledge to any fire protection engineering project that you may be embarking on, to help you find solutions to any fire problems and hazards and find ways to work around them to protect your property. Contact FDSConsult at http://fdsconsult.com/ for more information.