FPE Program at NFSA Annual Seminar & Exhibition – April 8 in Baltimore

On April 8, 2011 a special session for fire protection engineers is set for the NFSA Annual Seminar & Exhibition. This event will be held at the Hilton Baltimore in Maryland. Developed especially for practicing fire protection engineers, this special registration option opens with a keynote address from Dr. James Milke of the University of Maryland’s fire protection engineering program, discussing the latest information on the interaction of sprinklers and vents. Registrants are then able to take in two of the many technical workshop offerings available to regular seminar registrants. Registration fee is $35 and includes lunch and complimentary pass to exhibition. To find out more go to http://www.nfsa.org/event_items/2011fpeprogram.pdf.

Society of Fire Protection Engineers Updates its Bylaws

The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) Board of Directors has completed a comprehensive review of the SFPE Bylaws. To read the revised bylaws, see http://www.sfpe.org/upload/bylaws_march2011.pdf.

March 25 Marks 100th Anniversary of the Deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

A nice story about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire can be found on Fire Engineering website at http://www.fireengineering.com/index/articles/display.articles.fire-engineering.incidents.2011.03.triangle-shirtwaist-100-yrs.html.

CALL FOR PAPERS -- SPECIAL ISSUE OF FIRE TECHNOLOGY ON “SCIENTIFICALLY-BASED FIRE INVESTIGATIONS”

ANNOUNCEMENT -- CALL FOR PAPERS

SPECIAL ISSUE OF FIRE TECHNOLOGY ON “SCIENTIFICALLY-BASED FIRE INVESTIGATIONS”

Fire Technology, the journal of the National Fire Protection Association published by Springer, is preparing an issue on fire investigation. The purpose of this special issue of Fire Technology is to communicate the latest advances in science that improve and underpin the methods used in fire investigations. Papers are solicited in all areas of scientifically-based fire investigations. Papers can include technological advances, original research results, methodology development, and case studies with a focus on the fire investigations. Comprehensive fire investigations serve many roles from advancing life safety to identifying responsibility for the allocation of losses or for criminal prosecution. Consequently, fire investigations and analyses can have wide impact and significant consequences, such as death penalty decisions for convicted arsonists.

The science of fire investigations continues to advance in areas of scene documentation, evidence collection and analysis, pattern identification and analysis, reliability of evidence, and the use of tools, such as computer fire modeling. NFPA 921, Guide for Fire & Explosion Investigations, reinforces the use of the scientific method in performing fire analyses, in part by delineating analytical methods that are underpinned by well documented scientific studies versus beliefs/misconceptions passed from one generation of fire investigators to the next.

Submissions accepted until May 30, 2011 at http://fire.edmgr.com/, choose article type “fire investigation”.

Fire Technology is a peer reviewed (double blind) journal. At least two reviewers, maybe three, will evaluate the paper before a publication decision is taken. Immediately after acceptance, papers are available online in "Online First". Later on, when all papers on the special issue have been accepted/published, a hard copy of the issue is printed and distributed.

For questions, contact either of the Guest Co-Editors:
Daniel T. Gottuk, Ph.D., P.E., Hughes Associates, Inc., DGOTTUK@haifire.com
David J. Icove, Ph.D., P.E., University of Tennessee, icove@utk.edu

NCN-SFPE Chapter 2010 California Codes and Standards Changes Seminar Set for May 4, 2011

A Seminar on the 2010 California Building and Fire Code changes related to fire sprinkler and fire alarm systems will be hosted by the Northern California-Nevada Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers in Santa Clara, Ca. The seminar will be held on May 4, 2011.

Speakers include SF Fire Marshal Barbara Schultheis, Pleasanton Building Official George Thomas, Russ Fleming with NFSA and Sagiv Weis-Ishai with the SF Fire Prevention Office.

Half or full day: Contact Tammy Schilling at tschilling@rjagroup.com , (925) 938-3550or see site: www.ncnsfpe.org.

University of Waterloo to Offer Week-Long Course in Fire Risk Alalysis -- May 2-6, 2011

ATTENTION! Architects, Building Consultants, Engineers, Regulatory Officials, Fire Safety and Fire Service professionals!

The University of Waterloo (UW) Fire Safety Engineering Group is pleased to announce a course in Fire Risk Analysis Taught by Professor Jack Watts (Firesafety Institute, USA) with Lectures by Ganapathy Ramachandran (UK).

May 2-6, 2011 (week-long intensive lecture format; course work due May-August, 2011)
Monday - Thursday: 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Friday: 8:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.

This course provides a broad treatment of principles and case studies relating to engineering decision-making, risk identification, scenario development and risk management. Basic concepts in probability and reliability, interpretation of risk data, consequence analysis, risk-based modeling and economics of fire protection are also covered. Participants are encouraged to bring their experiences and views as in-class discussions provide many opportunities for the exchange of information.

• Industry professionals: take as a single course or towards a 4-course Fire Safety certificate ($2500/course – discounts apply on multiple attendees or courses)

• UW registered graduate students: take as course requirement for any graduate program at UW (no charge)

Classes are held on the University of Waterloo campus. All course materials and lunches are provided. Graded coursework is submitted electronically over the Spring term (May - Aug 2011).

To register complete the form that can be found at www.mme.uwaterloo.ca/~firelab (please indicate if you have any special dietary needs). General information on the UW Fire Safety Program and Fire Research Labs is also on the website.

Call for Posters for NFPA Research Section networking event - June 13, 2011, 5:30-7:00 PM, Boston

Do you have a student, or know of a student, who is doing some really exciting research in some aspect of fire and life safety, and would like to present results or work in progress?

At this year’s National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Conference & Expo in Boston, MA, the Research Section of NFPA is going to hold the first ever research networking reception and student research poster session. Their aim is to provide a relaxed but serious venue for interaction between the research community and young researchers to discuss current or recently completed research across a diversity of fire science, engineering and human factors topics.

The deadline for abstract submittal is March 31, 2011. The poster session and reception will be held from 5:30-7:00 pm on Monday, June 13th, in conjunction with the NFPA conference.

Click here for more information or to see the call for papers.

First Lutheran Middle School from Ponca City, Oklahoma Receives Society of Fire Protection Engineers’ Award at National Future City Competition

2011 Engineers Week Award Winners for Best Fire Protection Engineering

Left to Right: Sam Flowers, Zach Clark, Madison Doornbos, Pam Belzer (Teacher), Kristin Holle, Earl Holle (Engineering Mentor), Madi Taber and Chris Jelenewicz (SFPE).

The First Lutheran Middle School from Ponca City, Oklahoma was awarded for best fire protection engineering that keeps people and property safe from fire. This award was presented by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) at the 2011 National Engineers Week Future City Competition.

“The Future Cities competition gives students the opportunity to apply the math and science they learned in school to a real-world application,” said SFPE Engineering Program Manager Chris Jelenewicz. “America needs more good engineers and this competition will encourage these exceptional students to become the engineers of the future.”

Using computer software, the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students designed a city of the future. The students worked as a team with a teacher and volunteer engineer mentor to build a large tabletop scale model of a city and presented their design concepts before a panel of judges at the competition.

The fire protection engineering award is given to the team that best includes fire protection features into their city. These features may include structural fire resistance, detection and suppression systems, egress systems, alerting systems, and limitation of combustibles.

“The fire protection engineering award winners were recognized for using the principles of the fire triangle to develop a new type of futuristic fire suppression system that will keep their city safe from fire,” said Jelenewicz.

About the Future City Competition
The National Engineers Week Future City Competition is a program developed for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students to help them discover and foster interests in math, science and engineering. Students work in teams under the guidance of a teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor to design and build a city of tomorrow. They create cities on computers and then build three-dimensional, tabletop models to scale. Students also write brief narratives describing their city and must present and defend their designs at the competition before a panel of engineer judges who test the depth of the teams’ knowledge.

For more information about Future City visit http://www.futurecity.org/.

International Workshop on Fire and Explosion Safety in Large Car Parks May 30, 2011 – ‘Het Pand’, Ghent (Belgium)

During the past 2 years, a large research project on fire and explosion safety in large car parks (http://www.carparkfiresafety.be) has been conducted.

The aim of this workshop is to report and discuss the major results. The workshop takes place on Monday May 30, 2011. The seminar will be held at ‘Het Pand’, Onderbergen 1, Ghent, Belgium. Travel information is found on the web site https://www.ugent.be/nl/voorzieningen/pand.

Registration and Fee

Registrations are managed online: http://users.ugent.be/~emeerbur/carparkfiresafety/.

The basic registration fee is €125 per participant. An additional fee of €30 will be required for late registration (after April 17, 2011). The registration fee includes a CD-ROM with the presentations of the day, coffees, drinks and lunch.

For any practical questions, please contact Ms. Elise Meerburg (Elise.Meerburg@UGent.be).