Fire Safety Engineering is multi-discipline in nature. There is significant overlapping of knowledge between mechanical, electrical and structural engineering as well as building services and access. Fire Safety Engineering also embraces an understanding of human behaviour.
The Building Code of Australia (BCA) is intended to apply to a broad range of building types, from the simple to the most complex, in which case, the more complex the design the more restrictive the prescriptive measures of the BCA will be. The same can also be said for relatively ‘normal’ buildings where the Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions of the BCA place too many limitations on the proposed development.
The specific area of practice of Fire Safety Engineering has been established to distinguish professional engineers, whom have expert knowledge and experience that enables Alternative Solutions to be developed which can overcome these challenges whilst at the same time meet the design goals, safety objectives as well as financial and operational targets of a project.
FSE is described by Engineers Australia as “the application of engineering principles, rules and expert judgement based on a scientific appreciation of the fire phenomenon, of the effects of fire and of the reaction and behaviour of people in order to:
- Save life, protect property and preserve the environment and heritage from destructive fire;
- Quantify the hazards and risk of fire and its effects;
- Mitigate fire damage by proper design, construction, arrangement and use of buildings, materials, structures, industrial processes and transportation systems;
- Evaluate analytically the optimum protective and preventive measures, including design, installation and maintenance of active and passive fire and life safety systems, necessary to limit, within prescribed levels, the consequences of fire.”
MCD Fire Engineering provide a broad range of services including, but not limited to, fire safety audits on existing buildings, review and provision of fire safety upgrade strategies for buildings subject to Council or Fire Brigade Orders, review of product data/application with regard to fire safety standards and compliance, fire engineering solutions on DtS non-compliances within buildings and inspection and certification of design.
MCD Fire Engineering have international and local experience in the design and application of fire safety systems and endeavour to remain up to date with new developments within the fire engineering industry. We use both simple and advanced fire engineering computational tools, where we can analyse the fire safety risks from first principles and then develop an appropriate solution that meets the requirements for existing as well as new buildings.
