A Message from the ECCG President and European Chapter Updates

Welcome

My name is Armelle Muller, and I was elected as the new ECCG president for 2017. Let me first say a few words to introduce myself.

I have been the president of the French Chapter since 2012. On a professional level I have been involved in fire investigation, fire tests, fire protection and fire safety engineering for 25 years. I am working at CNPP in Saint Marcel in Normandy (not far from painter Claude Monet’s house for those who are fond of impressionism). I am currently the director of the Fire Laboratory where I manage a team of 25 people. On a global level I am also responsible for all research and development tasks at CNPP.

Regarding ECCG, first of all I would like to congratulate and thank Piotr Tofilo and Jimmy Jönsson for the great work they have done as president and past-president. I would also like to underline the support we benefit from SFPE® Headquarters. Thanks to Nicole, Melissa, Julie, Debra and Chris.

What would I like for ECCG? My first tasks will be to:

  • Support and help the next SFPE Europe Conference in Rotterdam in 2018
  • Promote and support the development of existing chapters and the creation of new chapters
  • Re-launch the thinking process about fire safety engineering qualification in Europe

As some of you know, I am a member of SFPE International Board in 2017, which will naturally make cooperation easier within the SFPE family.

I am looking forward to start working with all of you.

Yours sincerely,


Armelle Muller

Chapter News

Benelux 

SFPE® Benelux has been working on its new website and the organization of the European conference in 2018.

Besides that, we are happy to announce the collaboration with the student chapter, with thanks to professor Bart Merci from Ghent University for setting this up. We are also renewing our collaboration with the alumni association of post-docs of Ghent University, “FireProNet.”

Finally, we have determined three focal areas around which we will try and organize events for our members and develop position papers. They are health care, car parks and tunnels.

France

A conference was held on January 12, 2017, at the exhibition center Paris Porte de Versailles. In the morning, presentations on sprinkler systems were organized: residential sprinkler, standardization, situational analysis in Europe and in France, an update about sprinklers in warehouses and high-rise buildings, certification of installers, and a new guide about rescue service operation in a sprinklered building. The afternoon was dedicated to a guided tour of the venue: new buildings, fire safety systems and provisions. The conference was a great success with 70 attendees. Results of a survey to evaluate attendee satisfaction were very positive.

The next event to be organized by the French Chapter will be a conference breakfast on June 15, 2017, in Paris. The subject will be the new fire soft regulation: impact and consequences on liability.

Italy

The Italian Chapter, known locally as AIIA (Italian Association of Fire Engineering), has organized different activities lately. In 2016, we had a national conference on the future of fire safety engineering in Italy after the release of the new Fire Prevention Code. We also held a seminar that was organized with the Italian Association of Rack Manufacturers to discuss the fire protection features of high-bay storage arrangements in lieu of the current knowledge and current legislation. Both events had a high number of attendees.

We have started an important initiative in 2016: Within the Italian Standard Organization (UNI) a working group has been started on fire safety engineering. The group has approximately 20 members and is the mirror group of the CEN/TC 127 WG8 on Fire Engineering and of ISO/TC92 SC4. A primary discussion is the publication in Italy of ISO standards with an Italian preface, to be used by Italian professionals when they deal with a fire safety engineering activity. Another matter under discussion is to define the characteristics that a professional engineer dealing with fire safety engineering should have to be considered qualified for the job.

The plan for 2017 is the organization of a national conference in October that will deal with sprinkler system technology today. There are many changes in sprinkler technology—usually considered an “old technology” with no news—so we considered it important to discuss within Italy’s fire Engineering community.

Poland

The Polish Chapter is currently involved in the following activities:

  • Organizing a mini conference on March 9 on fire safety in buildings during the construction phase .
  • Co-organizing a Eurosprinkler Conference in Warsaw, to be held on April 26. For more information, visit http://fps.eurosprinkler.org/en/home.
  • Translating the NFPA 13 into Polish.

Portugal

The Portuguese Chapter is taking its first steps. The founding meeting was held on December 15. The constitution and bylaws have been approved by SFPE®, and the legal registration as a nonprofit association in Portugal has been initiated. The website is up and running.

The following plan of activities has been developed:

  • April 7: Discussion of building evacuation: design and human behavior
  • May 5: Visit to a Portuguese manufacturer of fire-resistant doors and other fire-resistant materials
  • June 2: Co-organizing the 2nd international conference “Performance-Based Fire Safety Design,” hosted by Ordem dos Arquitetos (Portuguese architects charter association).
  • June 3–4: Hosting the SFPE course “Evacuation for Fire Safety Engineering”
  • September 29: Discussion of sprinkler design: why, where and how
  • October 27: Visit to FireLab, Coimbra University laboratory of fire resistance and fire reaction
  • November 24: Discussion of smoke control: Is the prescriptive code enough?

Spain

The Spanish Chapter is now registered as a nonprofit organization in Spain. This is a major milestone for us as it will help us organize activities in a more efficient way.

We will have our first main event of the year in May. It will be a technical seminar about special extinguishing systems. At this event we will also present the events/activities planned for the rest of the year.

We have recently held a couple of one-day courses, given to different governmental bodies. We are also involved in a national Master in Fire Safety course and are giving classes on performance-based design.

Sweden

SFPE® Sweden focused a lot on strategic activities, referrals and education during the second half of 2016. The activities can be summarized as follows:

  • Our new and updated bylaws have now been published, which is the final result of our 2015 strategic work.
  • An evaluation of the Swedish Chapter’s association with SFPE was finished and presented to the members at the annual meeting. The evaluation highlighted the positive effects of the affinity.
  • A lot of internal policy documents (representation, delegation, etc.), as a result of the strategic work in 2015, were implemented successfully.
  • SFPE Sweden provided input to the National Board of Housing regarding references to standards in national regulations. The need for our input is increasing.
  • SFPE Sweden responded to several letters of referrals from the Swedish Fire Protection Association, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and National Board of Housing. Therefore, a referral-committee has been formed in the chapter, and its work has been very successful this year.
  • Apart from being represented in the fire safety reference group of the National Board of Housing, we are now also represented in a reference group for a research project about ignition sources and fire outcomes and fire safety in high-rise buildings built of wood, connected to faculty of engineering LTH and the Swedish Fire Protection Association.
  • SFPE Sweden’s four local groups have had one meeting each. In Gothenburg, the topic of the meeting was SP Fire 105 as in Östergötland. In Stockholm, they focused on quality assurance of calculation models, and in the south, about the collision between two standards and regulations.
  • SFPE Sweden has continued to increase its communication on the chapter webpage, Facebook and Twitter; our newsletter (published four times a year) is highly appreciated. We are getting more members as a result of this.
  • Last but not least our annual scholarship was granted to a professor in Sweden, Göran Holmstedt, for his work in both the academic world and the private market.

UK

The UK Chapter is continuing to grow, having hosted two continuing professional development (CPD) events in January, both on the new release of British Standard BS 9999. Such was the level of interest in the London CPD event that we had to stop taking bookings when we reached 70 people. We have additional events proposed throughout the year as diverse as discussions about sprinklers and smoke plumes to an evening out at an award-winning and unique theater. We are now looking at providing CPD by webinar. If our test cases are successful we would be happy to pass the information onto our colleagues in Europe. All CPD that we run in the UK is provided free as a chapter member and chapter supporter benefit, and being a chapter supporter or member is also free. You simply need to contact us via the contact details on www.SFPE.uk.