News

One school fire every day of term prompts sprinklers call

Published: 14 January 2012

New figures released January 2012 by London Fire Brigade show that last year there was one fire every three days in the capital’s schools, colleges and nurseries – the equivalent of one fire for nearly every school day.

Fire chiefs say these statistics should serve as a stark reminder of why sprinklers need to be installed in education buildings.

Last year there were 36 arson attacks on London’s schools, colleges and nursery buildings and a further 113 accidental fires. Nationally every year, one in eight schools suffer a serious arson attack and the cost of school fires is around £65 million, with London accounting for over a third of that figure.

As well as the huge financial cost, a fire that destroys a school or college causes massive disruption to students, teachers and families and can have a devastating effect on the wider community and the capital’s economy.

Chairman of London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority’s Community Safety Committee, Cllr Susan Hall, said: “The number and regularity of school fires we attend is yet more evidence, if any were needed, that builders, developers, local authorities, governing bodies and other private providers must stop ignoring the huge benefits of sprinklers.

“As well as making sure the children in their care are protected, those responsible for our schools should recognise that sprinklers can dramatically reduce damage by stopping fires from spreading so quickly. This would help to protect the significant amount of public money invested in our school buildings.”

Last year London Fire Brigade revealed that almost two thirds of new or refurbished schools planned for the capital are still not being built with potentially life-saving sprinklers installed. This is despite government guidelines introduced three years ago recommending that, in most cases, they should be fitted.

Fire chiefs are consulted on plans for new schools and projects to refurbish existing ones, and according to the Brigade’s own figures, six out of ten schools that have proposed building work in the last three years were not going to install sprinklers.

New qualification to help tackle $630 billion worldwide cost of fires

Published: 14 January 2012

A new vocational qualification has been developed to help reduce the annual worldwide cost of fire damage of around $630 billion.

Safety, health and environmental examination board NEBOSH will officially launch the International Certificate in Fire Safety and Risk Management at the Intersec trade fair in Dubai on 15th January 2012.

Thousands of people die and many more are injured throughout the world as a result of fires each year. A large number of these deaths and injuries occur in workplaces and often result from failure to manage the risks of fire. As well as the cost in terms of lives, fires also have a huge economic impact. According to the World Fire Statistics Centre(1) – the annual worldwide cost of fire is around 1% of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product), or around $630 billion(2). A large proportion of businesses never recover following a fire.

“This latest qualification will help raise standards of fire risk management in workplaces across the world,” said NEBOSH Chief Executive, Teresa Budworth. “Our qualification will provide safety practitioners, managers and others with the know-how and skills to significantly improve fire safety where they work.”

The qualification covers the causes of fire in workplaces, fire prevention and protection techniques. To achieve the qualification students will need to carry out a fire risk assessment in their own workplace.

The International Certificate in Fire Safety and Risk Management is based on International standards and good practice from organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), International Code Council (ICC) and the Confederation of Fire Protection Association Europe (CFPA-Europe).

For more information on this or any other NEBOSH qualification, visit www.nebosh.org.uk/qualifications.

(1) www.genevaassociation.org

(2) Annual global GDP in 2010 was $63 trillion, according to the World Bank (www.worldbank.org)

Notes

Contact: Julia Whiting, Communications Co-ordinator, NEBOSH | Tel: + 44 (0)116 263 4724 | Mobile: +44 (0)7850 204072 | Email: julia.whiting@nebosh.org.uk | www.nebosh.org.uk

World’s most advanced crowd simulation and evacuation software

Published: 14 January 2012

Scientists at the University of Greenwich have released the next generation of their evacuation and crowd simulation software, buildingEXODUS. Professor Ed Galea, Director of the university’s Fire Safety Engineering Group and the software developer, reports.

The crowd simulation software, created by the university’s Fire Safety Engineering Group, is already one of the world’s leading design tools for simulating evacuations of people from buildings in both normal and emergency conditions. The latest release – known as Version 5.0 – has new capabilities that will enable building engineers to perform the most realistic desktop simulations that have ever been possible, predicting not only how individual people interact with each other and the built environment, but also how they can be debilitated by hazards such as heat, smoke and toxic gases.

The university’s Fire Safety Engineering Group is a world leader in computational fire engineering. It has unparalleled expertise in aircraft, building, ship and rail evacuation and fire modelling, with its team of experts undertaking a unique combination of leading-edge research, large-scale human factors trials and practical real world consultancy. Fire Safety Engineering Group’s projects have included studies of the Airbus A380 superjumbo, the Sydney and Beijing Olympics, the World Trade Centre evacuation and the 7 July London bombings.

The latest software, Version 5.0, draws extensively on data and experience captured from experiments and real-life incidents. Its human behaviour ‘submodel’ includes rules governing the often complex behaviour of people affected by smoke in fire situations and the use of signage in an emergency. It also examines the psychological aspects governing how, and why, people select an escalator or an adjacent staircase as their escape route.
BuildingEXODUS Version 5.0 provides building engineers with a sophisticated and powerful analysis tool to simulate and analyse crowd movement and evacuation.

The new capabilities are a direct response to needs identified by our clients around the world. They represent a quantum leap in the sophistication offered by buildingEXODUS, and will help to maintain the software as one of the most advanced crowd simulation packages available.

The arrival of this level of sophistication on the desktop means that building engineers can test more designs in less time, giving them the most accurate, and extensively researched, resources for organising the evacuation of buildings.

Fire Safety Engineering Group is part of the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Greenwich. The group’s other products, which are also leading design tools used around the world, are airEXODUS, designed specifically for evacuating aircraft, and SMARTFIRE, a fire simulation software used by fire engineers.

Since its launch in 1996, the buildingEXODUS package has been used by engineering consultancies, architects, research laboratories, regulatory authorities, police forces, fire brigades and universities in 37 countries.

The package has also been used to model the evacuation capabilities of a wide range of proposed or existing buildings and crowd situations, from the Love Parade disaster analysis to the Beijing Olympics, and from the World Trade Centre investigation to the Statue of Liberty redevelopment.

The software is used in design analysis for underground stations, high-rise buildings, hospitals, shopping complexes, school buildings, museums, theatres, airport terminals, sports stadia, external crowd events – in short, for virtually any type of situation involving the gathering or movement of people.

For more information on buildingEXODUS, visit the Fire Safety Engineering Group website at: http://fseg.gre.ac.uk

FIG UK members from the Kent Fire and Rescue Service win Research Excellence Award

Published: 24 November 2011

For the first time the FIRE Magazine/Gore Research Excellence Award has been split between two winners: David Wales and Owain Thompson from Kent Fire and Rescue Service, and Mark Hobbs of East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.

David and Owain are FIG UK members.

This year's Fire Related Research and Developments (RE11) event from the Fire Service College saw a record number of entries for the FIRE Magazine/Gore Research Excellence Awards for best overall research project and presentation with a prize of £1,000, and poster display with a prize of £250. W. L. Gore and Associate's Product Specialist Dave Frodsham presented the awards with FIRE Editor Andrew Lynch at the close of the seminar held on 17 November 2011.

RE11 is an annual event organised by the Institution of Fire Engineers and the Fire Service College, and has been supported by the FIRE and Gore awards for the last five years.

Speaking on behalf of the panel at the presentation, FIRE Editor Andrew Lynch said that many of the entrants should consider resubmitting next year as they were of a very high standard, although in the early stages of development. The panel also faced a dilemma in not being able to choose between the two eventual winners, so opted for the joint award.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service's David Wales and Owain Thompson presented on Human Behaviour in Dwelling Fires: A Qualitative Insight describing Kent's ground-breaking pilot study. East Sussex's Mark Hobbs paper, A Journey in Fire Investigation: Achieving Wider Outcomes focussed on fires involving electrical intakes and has already led to improvements in the industry.

Human Behaviour in Dwelling Fires

David Wales and Owain Thompson's presentation outlined what is currently known about human behaviour in fire, notably is traditional focus on public, commercial and industrial spaces and the gap in knowledge that exists on human behaviour in accidental dwelling fires (ADFs). The presenters argued that it is necessary for fire services to develop a generalised understanding of occupant behaviour and motivations in ADFs. They identified and outlined some of the circumstances and motivating factors which may result in clear differences between human behaviour in home fires compared to fires in other public spaces.

The speakers addressed how, in order to begin to understand occupant behaviours and motivations, Kent Fire and Rescue Service undertook a qualitative pilot study of those suffering injuries in ADFs. The reasons behind adopting a qualitative approach were explained along with the associated benefits and drawbacks. The presentation drew attention to the fact that although the pilot included only a small sample size, its value lies in the depth and richness of the data obtained.

Contact

Research award winners give back to charity

The joint winners of FIRE magazine's Research Excellence Award have both decided to honour the spirit in which their research was conducted by choosing to donate their prize money to two deserving charities.

Both pieces of research, Human Behaviour in Dwelling Fires by David Wales and Owain Thompson of Kent FRS and A Journey in Fire Investigation by Mark Hobbs were designed to reduce the number of injuries and deaths in fires and the two charities they have given too also seek to improve fire safety and recovery from fire-related injuries.

David and Owain donated their prize fund to the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead and the Children's Burns Trust while Mark combined his money with a donation from the family of a lady that died following a fire in an electrical intake (£1000) and a matched donation from the Electrical Safety Council, to further promote electrical fire safety.

The winners of the award are particularly pleased to have achieved this recognition as they both work in the field of fire investigation and through the South East Fire Investigation Group (SEFIG) already work together to promote the benefits and wider outcomes of fire investigation to their local communities and the general fire sector.

It is anticipated that both Kent and East Sussex will continue to work closely together with East Sussex's Black Museum website being used to help facilitate Kent FRS in gathering further information for research into human behaviour before the findings from this research are published on the site.

'Black Museum' contains case histories from real fires that provide details of the causes and circumstances of the fire and will often include a powerful impact statement from those that were affected.