The Essentiality of Fire Protection Engineers

While fires may be great for cooking, ceremony and destroying trash, when they spiral out of control, they often become very hazardous very quickly. That’s why it’s important to have an escape plan in place and even better, have ways of preventing a fire from manifesting in the first place.Fire Protection Engineers are engineers who design equipment and technology to protect people and environments from fire and smoke hazards. Their work is not limited to designing fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and sprinklers. Their work also includes:

-escape outlets

-analysis of fire hazard risks

-some psychology on human behavior in the midst of a fire or smoke

-helping to put out wildlife fires

-assisting with designing fire programs

• and more.

Our ways of fire prevention may be very advanced in our day and age but their history actually dates back to Rome during the time of Caesar Nero. After an infamous fire destroyed practically the entire city of Rome, Nero ordered for a re-build by using certain docile fire prevention methods such as non- flammable material and much space separation.

In the U.S., the application of fire engineering didn’t start to seriously emerge until the 20th century when the people were concerned about protecting especially factories and other industrial plants from the hazards. The first degree program for fire engineering was developed in 1903 by the Illinois Institute of Technology (then called the Armour Institute of Technology). As time went by during the 20th century, numerous cataclysmic fires seemed to breaking out almost anywhere and as a result, people were beginning to become concerned about implementing fire prevention codes. It actually wasn’t until around 1950 when fire engineering became its own independent program and profession in the U.S.

The fire engineering program today consists of a focus on the hard sciences, particularly heat transfer, thermodynamics, etc., statistics, probability, risk management and environmental psychology. Some technical writing is included in their education as well. Their classwork is often combined with field training. Proper education coursework typically takes the traditional four years though many also get their start as volunteer or professional firefighters. Sometimes they may already have their degree in engineering and that’s always a plus because then they only need to add the fire science courses specifically.

All of the above being said, the advanced and automatic fire protection systems that most buildings have in place today would not be possible without our fire engineers and their knowledge today. Fires are estimated to be the cause of just over 30% of deaths annually and that number would probably still be much higher if it weren’t for the advancement of the field of fire engineering

James Anderson has only one mission: to help inform people. When he first started writing, he was fascinated with his ability to help people understand things. Since then, he has been writing to help educate people that want to learn more.