A Message from the SFPE Europe President and European Chapter Updates

Welcome

Dear SFPE Europe members,

Europe has finally become aware of fire threats. This is largely linked to the Grenfell Tower catastrophe, which re-opened the eyes of European political leaders.

G. Katsarakis responded first by taking the initiative to launch the Fire Information Exchange Platform (FIEP), which will discuss key issues such as fire statistics, façades and fire safety engineering. The International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) undertook another initiative: organizing a meeting in Brussels on December 3, 2018, of representatives of the European Commission, stakeholders and scientific experts. We hope that these steps will result in raising awareness of the commission and bring fire areas into the next research program.

Fire risk is deeply connected to big challenges facing humanity: climate change, sustainable development, energy saving, new technologies.

My mandate as SFPE Europe president ends this month. I wish lots of success to the next president.

Happy Holidays!

Best regards,


Armelle Muller
SFPE Europe President


Chapter News

France

Our October 18 breakfast conference in Paris on the Grenfell Tower disaster was a great success, with 140 attendees. The audience particularly appreciated the presentation by José Torero on complexity in tall building design.

Now we are actively preparing for the next conference, which will focus on fire risk in the nuclear industry. The presentation will cover fire risk management from ore mining to dismantling nuclear power plants.

At our last French chapter board meeting, we elected the president, treasurer and secretary. Armelle Muller was re-elected for the next three years as president of the French chapter.

Portugal

Our October 18 breakfast conference in Paris on the Grenfell Tower disaster was a great success, with 140 attendees. The audience particularly appreciated the presentation by José Torero on complexity in tall building design.

Now we are actively preparing for the next conference, which will focus on fire risk in the nuclear industry. The presentation will cover fire risk management from ore mining to dismantling nuclear power plant.

At our last French chapter board meeting, we elected the president, treasurer and secretary. Armelle Muller was re-elected for the next three years as president of the French chapter.

Spain

The Spanish chapter is now planning for its first meeting, to be held in January or February 2019. Plans for future activities for working groups and possible seminars will be determined at this meeting.

At the moment, the chapter is busy helping out with preparations for the SFPE Europe Conference, to be held in Malaga in 2019.

Switzerland

The chapter had its inaugural event on November 13, 2018, in Zurich, with about 85 people in attendance.

Working groups were formed and have already been very active.

Working group events and website highlights include:

  • The launch of the website — www.sfpe.ch.
  • The organization’s first SFPE Switzerland conference in Zurich, held on December 3, 2019, as a full-day event. 

Working Group Training, Further Education and Accreditation

  • The working group is preparing an application for a master’s in Fire Safety Engineering at the ETH. Professor Frangi from ETH Zurich has agreed to take the lead on this project. The curriculum is currently being developed. The master’s must then be approved by the Executive Board of the ETH. If everything goes according to plan, the first master’s in Fire Safety Engineering in Switzerland could begin at ETH Zurich in the summer semester of 2020.
  • The group also made contact with the Swiss Engineers and Architects Association (SIA) regarding standards. Due to the Grenfell Tower event, the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) is restarting some work on performance-based design. SFPE Switzerland plans to participate in this process through the SIA.

United Kingdom

The SFPE UK Chapter’s 2018 award winners are:

  • Best Fire Strategy 2018 — Declan Thomson for Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital
  • Best Fire Research 2018 — Glenn Hamilton for Toward Fire Safe Schools: Analysis of Human Behaviour and Evacuation Considerations
  • Up & Coming Fire Engineer 2018 — Irene De Lezcano

We hope that these awards will continue to raise SFPE’s profile and provide a platform to celebrate the best fire engineering projects, research and young engineers in the industry. We plan to continue presenting these awards in 2019.

We had a busy autumn, with several CPD events held and future events planned.

A special highlight was to have Michael Crowley, SFPE board director, as a guest, informing us about SFPE’s global work and future plans. This was an excellent opportunity to speak to a board member directly.

We plan to continue with an interesting CPD program. Responses are greatly appreciated. We are also planning a SFPE social evening in January 2019 to start the New Year together.