Amy Kurr and Martin Veit outline how Poland’s summer school combined technical training and global networking for early-career fire safety professionals
Early-career fire safety professionals are challenged by the broadness of the profession.
From fire suppression to fire dynamics, from life safety to building egress, from human behaviour patterns to emerging technologies, and from codes and standards to performance-based design frameworks, young engineers and researchers worldwide find themselves drinking information from a firehose.
Forced to specialize, early-career fire safety professionals can find themselves in technical and professional silos.
To address this need, a team of established researchers from the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG) and the Instytut Techniki Budowlanej (ITB) proposed hosting an educational forum that would:
- Teach the fundamental concepts individuals in the field need to understand and apply
- Provide a high-level overview of commonly used applications and tools and the value of their synergistic implementation
- Foster conversation and collaboration among fire safety professionals from all walks of life
This past September, that vision became a reality.
The first Fire Fundamentals for Performance-Based Fire Safety Design Summer School welcomed 48 early-career fire researchers and engineers from 30 countries to Poland.
The program consisted of six days of technical programming: four days of lectures and two days of laboratory visits.
The schedule included 16 lectures, two on-site laboratory visits, six live demonstrations, a high-rise building case study, and a technical poster presentation.
Additionally, five evening activities were planned: a kickoff reception, drinks and tapas at a local pub, an award ceremony and gala, an evening social at a rooftop bar overlooking the Motława River, and dinner at Nidzica Castle.
Technical program
The technical program was taught through the framework of employing a scientific approach to address performance-based design problems. To achieve this, seven well-renowned lecturers from academia and industry were brought in: Dr. Andrea Lucherini (FRISSBE-ZAG, Slovenia), Dr. Martina Manes (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom), Prof. Bart Merci (Ghent University, Belgium), Dr. Michael Spearpoint (OFR Consultants, United Kingdom), Prof. José L. Torero (University College London, United Kingdom), Dr. Ruben Van Coile (Ghent University, Belgium), and Dr. Michael Woodrow (University College London, United Kingdom).
Lecture topics included design premises, fire behavior, smoke and heat control, evacuation, structural fire design, fire incident data, fire safety application, probabilistic performance-based design, risk acceptance, research consultancy, and emerging challenges.
The topics were provided in a mixed delivery format including lectures, discussions, and case studies.
The lectures were delivered in a format that assumed past exposure to common principles and laws governing math, physics, science, and engineering.
However, it was expected that participants would be largely unfamiliar with one or more topics due to the expansive nature of the fire safety industry.
The presentation format fostered much discussion within the individual lectures and among participants and lecturers over coffee breaks and downtime.
The program’s technical component started by introducing students to historical surrogates, values or concepts used as substitutions for technical values due to previous acceptance, in the fire safety industry.
Rather than rely on surrogates which are commonly found in codes and standards to define the design objectives, participants were challenged to think outside the box and define real design objectives.
The conversation then transitioned to the need to collect, understand, and apply technical data.
Various tools and applications were provided regarding flame spread, fire and smoke modeling, and building egress.
Lastly, participants learned about the tradeoff between risk, time, and money for building designs.
The different design processes (code consulting vs. performance-based design), roles (e.g., architects, general contractors, mechanical engineers), and regulatory frameworks used in different countries around the world were highlighted.
Participants gained a broad appreciation of the fundamentals of fire protection and safety science and the role they play in the grand scheme of things.
Throughout the week, three challenges facing the industry were repeatedly highlighted:
Technical silos
Fire engineers need to request integration into the full project lifecycle (design and construction) and take responsibility for public safety of the complete design and rather than the component they contribute to. Likewise, other professionals (e.g. architects, general contractors, non-fire engineers) need to assume joint responsibility.
Lack of competency and accountability
More countries need to establish a streamlined, professional certification process for fire protection and fire safety engineers to establish clear standards of competence and responsibility.
Educational support
Additional formal and informal educational opportunities for fire protection and adjacent fields need to be developed to support growing industry demands. Early-career professionals need increased encouragement and financial support from managers, leadership, and academic advisors to improve their technical competency through training, advanced degrees, and conference attendance.
The lecturers brought these topics to the foreground not to highlight incompetence within the industry, but rather to motivate attendees to propel the industry forward.
Educational sessions like the Summer School are necessary to challenge the beliefs of individuals and to refine the technical foundation of those beliefs.
This refocusing was apparent in the lecturers as well as the participants.
Laboratory visits
Participants and lecturers spent a full day exploring the Instytut Techniki Budowlanej (ITB) in Pionki, Poland and the Baltic Fire Laboratory (BFL) in Tuchom.
With 78 years supporting the fire testing of building materials and structures, ITB is one of the largest fire testing facilities in Europe supporting 2,200+ fire testing annually.
Built in 2019, BFL is one of the largest fire laboratories in the world with various accreditations supporting 600+ full-scale active fire protection systems tests annually.
At ITB, the group conducted a facility tour where they learned about the furnace setup, testing, and general operations. They witnessed fire testing of a ventilated facade.
An adjustable cavity width allowed guests to observe the changes in real-time fire behavior and material time-temperature data through infrared cameras and projectors.
Lastly, the group visited the aerodynamic wind tunnel facilities and a full-scale smoke control corridor that allowed the participants to experience realistic visibility and heat exposures in simulated evacuation conditions for different fire suppression systems (e.g., sprinkler, low- and high-pressure water mist) and ventilation system designs.
At BFL, participants and lecturers learned about the theoretical and practical background of sprinkler and water mist systems followed by two live demonstrations.
The lab visit concluded with a full-scale fire test and extinguishment of an internal combustion engine vehicle fire.
The test simulated the effectiveness of automatic water-based suppression systems in preventing fire spread between vehicles in an enclosed parking structure.
In addition to the lab tours, multiple sponsors invested in the Summer School. Their support decreased participant program fees, provided nine travel grants, and funded the poster presentation awards.
Wenxuan Wu, a PhD student at the University of Queensland (Australia), received the Lecturers’ Choice Award for his research on understanding smoldering risk in chromated-copper arsenate-treated timber.
Matthew Bonner, a Fire Engineer and Research Lead at Trigon Fire Safety (United Kingdom), received the Participants’ Choice Award for his investigation of a top-down approach to facade fire safety.
New colleagues and friends
Strength lies in differences, not in similarities. This concept was at the core of the summer school.
While the technical sessions were critical to the success of the summer school, the relaxing nature of the program combined with the on-site requirement for the duration of the program sets this program as the pinnacle of educational summer schools for early-career professionals in the fire safety industry.
The hospitality provided in Poland and by the organizational team encouraged raw and authentic conversations with each other.
Extended coffee breaks, shared transportation, and evening socials broke down the power dynamics between lecturers and participants.
Shared lodging accommodations and meals facilitated personal conversations that led to meaningful and lasting connections with a diverse group of people from around the globe.
Ultimately, the high face-to-face interactions forged a strong community.
In the months since the Summer School program has seen the participants’ community thrive in different facets.
Post-event communication in the event group chat has centered around future research collaborations with the laboratory sponsors, the exchange of technical literature, and informational exchange about fire safety/fire science educational resources (e.g., MeyerFire University) and degree programs.
At an individual level, Tomasz Domański (Poland) connected with the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying to learn about securing a Professional Engineering license to serve USA-based customers better.
At a global level, the Summer School stirred up new ideas in arenas tangential to fire safety including architecture (i.e., Fire Safe Design MArch Program at the University College London) and technical standards education (i.e., the free open-source Technical Standards in Engineering Program).
Women in Fire Engineering Group
Multiple female participants voiced challenges connecting with fellow early-career female fire engineers and locating mentors.
Individuals who joined the fire engineering industry from non-traditional degree programs (e.g., materials, mechanical, electrical) reported additional challenges.
As a result, the participants established the Women in Fire Engineering group.
The group consists of 12 members from 11 countries.
Their mission is to support early-career female fire engineers to enhance their technical competencies, interpersonal skills, and leadership capabilities to create a lasting impact in the fire protection and safety engineering field. Meetings are 60 minutes long and are held virtually each quarter.
The focus in 2025 is threefold: share technical resources, establish short- and long-term goals, and provide accountability.
Individuals interested in joining or presenting can contact Amy Kurr (United States of America) at ackurr2@gmail.com.
What’s next
The Summer School left a lasting impression and achieved its mission of providing a meeting place for like-minded people to discuss the fire safety challenges facing the industry today while improving their competencies in fire fundamentals.
Participant feedback reported extreme satisfaction with the 2024 Summer School and an eagerness to apply their knowledge in professional endeavors across the globe.
The host team is currently organizing a sequel, with the next summer school being planned for 2025, in Warsaw, Poland once again. Applications are expected to open in March of 2025.
The program serves as a monumental step forward in uniting the next generation of fire protection engineers with a common goal and has undoubtedly advanced fire safety engineering practices worldwide.
To learn more or help shape the next generation of fire safety engineers, contact Grunde Jomaas at grunde.jomaas@zag.si.
Sponsor list
Halliwell Fire Research, Baltic Fire Laboratory, Instytut Techniki Budowlanej, Fire & Risk Alliance, LLC, Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Co., Inc., Marioff, OFR Consultants, Trigon Fire Safety, Ei Electronics, INBEPO, and European Fire Sprinkler Network.
In addition to the sponsors, the program received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 952395 in association with the FRISSBE project.
This article was originally published in the January 2025 issue of International Fire & Safety Journal – to read your FREE digital copy, click here.