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Australian Fire Engineering Guidelines abcb.gov.au Page 10 1.3
Fire engineering The International Standards Organisation (ISO) defines fire (safety) engineering as: “The application of engineering principles, rules and expert judgement based on a scientific appreciation of the fire phenomena, of the effects of fire, and the reaction and behaviour of people, in order to:
save life, protect property and preserve the environment and heritage;
quantify the hazards and risk of fire and its effects;
evaluate analytically the optimum protective and preventative measures necessary to limit, within prescribed levels, the consequences of fire.” The NCC has the fire safety goals of life safety, facilitation of fire brigade intervention, and protection of other buildings from a fire in a building. Fire engineering is an evolving and rapidly developing discipline. In comparison to the traditional, established engineering disciplines, it does not have well-codified methods of approaching and solving problems. Fire engineering has only become a possibility as a result of developments in fire science increasing the understanding of the many aspects of fires in structures. These developments include:
how various materials ignite
the manner in which fire develops
the manner in which smoke (including toxic products) spread
how structures react to fire
how people respond to the threat of fire, alarms, and products of combustion. Fire science has also provided tools that can be used to predict some of the above phenomena, such as:
fire dynamics theory
deterministic and probabilistic fire behaviour and effects modelling
human behaviour and toxic effects modelling. |