6th International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security (ISTSS)

I attended the 6th International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security last week (Wed 12th to Friday 14th March 2014). The venue was the 'World Trade Centre' in Marseille, France. Despite the number in the title, this was actually the 7th in a series of tunnel safety conferences organised by SP, the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, and the 5th of them that I'd attended. The conferences are held approximately every second year and the next will be in Canada in March 2016.

I attended the original "Catastrophic Fires" symposium  (2003, Borås) as well as the 3rd (2008, Stockholm), 4th (2010; Frankfurt) and 5th (2012; New York) ISTSS gatherings. This conference, like the last few, was attended by well over 200 delegates from all around the globe, although the majority this time came from European countries. In general I found the presentations, discussions and debates at this conference better and more engaging than at either of the last two.

At previous conferences, the topic of water spray systems for fire protection and suppression was considered to be a 'niche' area, sometimes relegated to the smaller parallel session. That was not the case this time, with the 'Fixed Fire Fighting Systems' (FFFS) session being in the main room on the first morning of the conference. The opening keynote address by Magnus Arvidson from SP proposed a new set of 'performance objectives' for a standard test of the capabilities of water spray systems for tunnels. Much of what he said paralleled my keynote presentation on "Mitigation of Tunnel Fires" from the NYC conference 2 years ago, but some of the objectives he discussed appeared (to me at least) to imply a bias in the standard against water mist systems. Other presentations on FFFS were a mixed bag containing details of some new tests I wasn't previously aware of, through to some doubtful claims about the capabilities of computational fluid dynamics models like FDS being able to accurately predict the suppression effects of sprinklers on vehicle fires.

The "Fire Dynamics" session had some interesting stuff in it too, perhaps the most worrying of which was the presentation by Norm Alvares where he showed how easy it is to ignite vehicle tyres, and how hard they are to extinguish with water sprays.

But for me, the highlight of day 1 was the demonstration smoke test in the nearby Prado-Carénage Tunnel. The test was a demonstration of the capabilities of their ventilation system, which was quite impressive. Despite a naturally windy location, the system is able to control ventilation in the tunnel, so that if there is a fire in the tunnel, the airflow can be reduced to zero at the fire location, while smoke is extracted on either side of that location.

On day 2 of the conference I spent most of the day in the 'Ventilation' session as I was chairing the session in the morning and speaking in the afternoon. I have a particularly biased view of this session as my paper "Rediscovering the Throttling Effect" was awarded 'best paper' at the conference dinner. A video of my presentation is given below.



The other papers in the session were generally interesting and contained a good mix of experimental and modelling studies. It is clear, however, that we are still as obsessed with 'backlayering' as we were over a decade ago. I caught the final few talks in the 'Risk Analysis' session, and these were also interesting, some of them daring to ask questions about ethical issues and the value of human lives.

Photo thanks to Mia Kumm, Mälardalen University

The conference dinner was a good end to day 2 and featured singing by members of the SP team as well as awards for the best poster, the best paper and the ISTSS 'Achievement Award' which was given to Dr Yajue Wu from Sheffield University. An after dinner speech was given by Arnold Dix where he commended, amongst other things, the papers that took seriously the ethical issues of fire and life safety in tunnels. He also urged the delegates to share knowledge, in particular with developing countries - a message which was well received, but only time will tell if its actually applied.

The final day seemed slightly muted compared to the previous two, although there were still some interesting debates following Peter Johnson's claim that suppression systems do not hinder egress in tunnels. In the other session, there were some good presentations on passive fire protection and structural issues, with the 'mobile furnace' presented by CETU and CSTB being an interesting innovation. Following lunch, the day closed with a few presentations of case studies, including the worlds longest undersea tunnel project in Norway.

And then it was over. All in all it was a good conference, in a good location with some interesting presentations. I'm not a great fan of 'networking lunches' and the poster session was not given the prominence it deserved, but aside from those two minor niggles, this was an enjoyable and well organised conference. I look forward to the next one in Canada...

Ricky Carvel

The Science of Suppression FIRESEAT symposium

On November 9th, 2011 the students from the International Masters of Science in Fire Safety Engineering (IMFSE) studying in Edinburgh University were invited to attend the 5th FIRESEAT symposium "The Science of Suppression". During this conference, attended by ~85 people, we saw eight different speakers from varying parts of the world discussing topics focus around fire suppression.

The first speaker we had the privilege of seeing was Ronald Alpert. As the Alpert Correlations were among the topics covered in our Fire Dynamics course, we were all excited to hear him speak. Alpert explained how he designed his correlations and revisited them with new experiments. He eagerly stressed his excitement for someone to advance his correlations past the current level in which they are.

The next speaker was Yibing Xin of FM Global. Sprinkler technology was the topic discussed. FM Global is working on being able to affectively model how sprinkler systems work during suppression. By doing so, they are creating a new modeling tool, FireFOAM. This would be a very useful tool because of the expensive costs of having full-scale burns. We recognize the challenges faced in order to create a program such as this, although there is no doubt that it would be a great use to the Fire Protection Community.

Andre Marshall form the University of Maryland was the third speaker of FireSeat. The research Marshall is conducting also focuses around sprinklers. In contrast to Yibing, his research involves quantitatively breaking down the spray pattern of a sprinkler head and analyzing it. The techniques being used by Marshall are nothing short of impressive.

FireSeat at this point made a turn toward the use of water mist sprinkler systems. Louise Jackman of LPCB discussed some research she was conducting. This involved using mist systems in different setting with different variables. All we could conclude from this was that mist systems are temperamental, in which the system requires just the right variables to effectively work.

The next speaker was Stefan Kratzmeir of IFAB. He discussed his research involving the use of water mist systems in tunnels, hiting mist could be effective in mitigating a fire. Our concern with this topic was the interaction between the mist and the ventilation. We felt this concern was not addressed.

The next research area discussed was the use of cryogenic suppression, presented by MichaelDelichatsios of the University of Ulster. He explained the used of cryogenic material (mainly liquid nitrogen) to extinguish pool fires and wood crib fires. Although the method was effective, the delivering of the agent to the seat of the fire seems to remain the issue in which water and foam systems still have over such a suppression agent.

Suppression in tunnels again arose with the next speaker, Elizabeth Blanchard. Her modelling results of fire suppression inside a medium size tunnel seemed to be more accurate than previous studies. But the question already began to loom among our students concerning the interaction between the mist delivered and ventilation. Our concern was again not addressed, despite the effectiveness of the mist system to mitigate fire and enhance visibility, we felt more research should be performed to address the issue.

The final speaker of the 2011 FireSeat was Stefano Chiti of COWI. This research involved using hypoxic air for fire suppression and prevention. This would basically displace oxygen in the combustion process making combustion slow or near impossible to occur. This is a good research area, especially since Halon is no longer being used. We can see the use of this being great as long as it is ensured not to effect human life.

FireSeat was a great experience. It showed suppression research has many different areas that will improve the suppression actions of the Fire Protection Community in the future.

by Joshua Reichert and Oriol Rios, 2011 IMFSE students

2010 Impact Factors for fire related journals

The Journal Citation Reports has released the impact factors for 2010. The impact factor, one of the measures available to rank journals, is the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in the previous two years. It is calculated dividing the number of citations to papers published in the previous two years by the total number of items published during the same period. In order and for fire related journals, these are:

#1 Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 10.36 (was 12.44 in 2009)
#2 Journal of Hazardous Materials 3.72 (was 4.14 in 2009)
#3 Combustion and Flame 2.747 (was 2.92  in 2009)
#4 International Journal of Wildland Fire 2.21 (was 1.90 in 2009)
#5 Building and Environment 2.13 (was 1.80 in 2009)
#6 Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 1.79 (was 3.51 in 2009)
#7 Engineering Structures 1.36 (was 1.26 in 2009)
#8 Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 1.27 (was 1.23  in 2009)
#9 Combustion Science and Technology 1.11 (was 1.14 in 2009)
#10 Fire Safety Journal 1.02 (was 1.26 in 2009)
#11 Fire and Materials 0.96 (was 1.20 in 2009)
#12 Journal of Structural Engineering 0.83 (was 0.93 in 2009)
#13 Fire Technology 0.36 (was 0.37 in 2009)
#14 Journal of Fire Protection Engineering 0.15 (was 0.30 in 2009)

Clarification (derived from the wikipedia):
The 2010 impact factor of a given journal is equal to A/B. Where A is the number of times articles published in 2008 and 2009 were cited during 2010, and B is the total number of papers published by that journal in 2008 and 2009.

NOTE: Support your favorite journals by reading (and citing) them often

Water mist in tunnels - First hand experience

What follows are some personal reflections on my attendance at the SOLIT2 project workshop in Gijon, Spain, on 22nd & 23rd June 2011. But first, some context.

As might be expected for somebody who has worked in Fire Safety research for over a decade, I have seen quite a few experimental fires. We regularly fire test things in our lab and I've seen plenty of fires with heat release rates in the range of 300-500 kW. I have also seen fires in our lab as big as 700-800 kW and have seen the reactions of people to fires on this scale. They generally start backing away slowly and start feeling uncomfortable, both with the level of radiant heat they start experiencing and the 'what would happen if...' thoughts that start going through their minds.

Those fires are the limit of what our lab can handle (we can go transiently to 1000 kW - that is, 1 MW - but we rarely go that big). For various reasons, I've also been witness to some larger fire tests in the burn hall at BRE, for example, I've seen a pool fire that was a little over 2 MW and a solid plastic fire that was also about 2 MW. I've stood a few metres away from such fires and know what the radiant heat feels like. 2 MW is a big fire. When we did the Dalmarnock Fire Tests a few years ago, the peak heat release rate (for an entire living room / home office on fire) was around about 5 MW. 5 MW is a big fire.

But when we start talking about design fires for tunnels, we start hearing numbers like 30 MW or 100 MW and its hard to grasp just how big a fire that means.

So when I got the opportunity to witness an alleged '100 MW pool fire' in the San Pedro de Anes test tunnel, well, how could I refuse?

The SOLIT2 workshop was held in a nice hotel in Gijon, Spain, and featured not one but two visits to the nearby TST test tunnel to witness fire tests with water mist. These were allegedly not demonstration tests, but were part of the SOLIT2 test programme, investigating the abilities of a water mist suppression system to mitigate the effects of a fire in a tunnel.

The workshop started at the hotel on Wednesday 22nd June 2011. The first presentation, by Stefan Kratzmeir of IFAB, gave the context of the SOLIT2 project - the aim is to develop and test water mist technology to either:

1. Achieve the same same level of safety in a tunnel with a water mist system at a reduced cost compared to other common tunnel safety systems (i.e. by installing water mist, you can 'trade-off' and reduce the specifications of other safety systems, such as structural fire protection, or ventilation systems, etc.), or
2. Achieve a greater level of safety in a tunnel with a water mist system at the same cost as would be spent on other systems (i.e. still trading off systems).

So it was clear from the outset, the objective of this project was to reduce costs without increasing risk. But enough on the presentations, we were rapidly shipped off to the test site to witness a large pool fire test.

The fire was not 100 MW as advertised. It was probably about 50-60 MW, which is still [insert adjective or expletive of your choice] big! The 700 l of diesel fuel was distributed across 7 large rectangular fuel pans (each at least 2 m.sq). Once lit, the fire grew rapidly in severity (as pool fires do) and soon we (the observers, standing about 45m upstream of the fire) found ourselves looking up at a layer of smoke billowing across the ceiling above us. This is the dreaded phenomenon of 'backlayering' - even though there was a longitudinal flow of about 2 m/s, it wasn't sufficient to drive the smoke away from us.

It became clear that this hadn't been an intentional part of the demonstration. Some of the Fogtec and IFAB people started looking worried. But the water mist system (spanning a stretch of 50m of tunnel straddling the fire location) was started about 90 s after ignition (I think the intention had been to start it after 60 s) and soon the backlayering began to shrink back and ultimately vanish into the mist.

What rapidly became clear was that the water mist was not extinguishing the fire. It was hard to tell from an observer's point of view, but it appeared that the water mist was also not suppressing the fire, at least, not using the dictionary definition of suppressing (which involves concepts like halting growth and reducing size). The fire appeared to burn at about the same level of severity while the water mist operated. However, what the mist achieved was a reduction in backlayering, possibly due to a reduction in smoke production, or possibly due to a reduction in the buoyancy of the smoke. The mist also provided thermal protection for the tunnel structure and (had there been anyone there) from the people in the vicinity of the fire.

After the pool fire test we were returned to the hotel for an odd lunch of nibbles and finger food and an afternoon of fairly uninteresting presentations (in which the same point was made over and over again - you can trade off other systems against water mist. OK. I get it). Apologies to the speakers, if they're reading this, it wasn't that they were all boring, it was just that I'd heard most of it before, and there was a lot of repetition.

Day 2 of the workshop featured another presentation on the findings of the SOLIT2 project and then another coach trip to the test tunnel. This time, the fire test was to involve a 'simulated truckload' - that is, lots and lots of wooden pallets, arranged in the basic shape of a HGV trailer, covered by a tarpaulin and held in place by a steel frame. The fire was lit, the fire was allowed to grow for about 4 minutes, and the water mist system was activated.

Once again, the mist did not extinguish the fire. Indeed, the fire grew from about 3-5 MW at the point of activation of the mist to about 20-25 MW while the mist was active. But in this test, we (the observers) got the chance to put on waterproofs and approach the fire location.

Here's where the context above comes in. I know what it feels like to stand about 2 m away from a 1-2 MW fire. I now know what it feels like to stand about 2 m away from a 15 MW fire (the size when I approached the fire) in water mist. It feels more or less the same. That is, the radiant heat from a 15 MW fire is attenuated by the mist to such a degree that its similar to the heat flux from a fire a tenth of the size without mist.

And I also know just how wet you get in water mist.

And how good the visibility was. That surprised me. Standing beside the wall on one side of the tunnel, I could clearly see the way-finding lights on the opposite wall. In other words, visibility was still of the order of 10 m.

After about half an hour of burning, the fire brigade were sent in to extinguish the fire. This they could do easily. After this we saw another demonstration of a portable mist system on a burning car (in the open air) and were returned to the hotel for another odd lunch of nibbles and a final summing up session.

So I now have first hand experience of what water mist systems can do for fires in tunnels. They can block heat and reduce smoke production / backlayering.

I have published quite a lot on the subject of the limitations of water mist in the past. Has this experience changed my mind? Well, yes and no.

Yes, in that I now consider heat release rate to be a largely irrelevant parameter when assessing the life safety situation in a tunnel with an active water mist system.

No, in that the workshop still has not addressed some of my other questions, the primary one being 'are water mists systems better than conventional sprinkler systems for fires in tunnels?'

But I've got more to think about and more research to do. This won't be the last thing I publish on the subject of water mists.

Lloyd’s Science of Risk Prize goes to Fire Technology

Congratulations to Dr Francesco Colella for winning the Lloyd’s Science of Risk Prize in the Technology Category.

The prize was for his research paper "A Novel Multiscale Methodology for Simulating Tunnel Ventilation Flows During Fires" (published in Fire Technology). He led this work as a Research Associate at The School of Engineering from 2007 to 2010.

Dr Richard Ward, CEO of Lloyds told Francesco "The judging panel, comprising experts from academia and insurance felt your paper illustrated how novel computational methods can be used to reduce fire risk in the future. The panel were particularly impressed with how you reduced model run-time by concentrating on what is critical and by coupling fast and slower models".

This is Lloyd’s research prize for academics and aims at keeping the world’s leading specialist insurance market with the pace of academic knowledge and cutting edge thinking.


On top of this winning paper, The University of Edinburgh had three more papers short-listed as the top of each category (two of them from the fire group as well):

* Mr Craig Poland, short-listed in Technology Risk (best runner up), from the School of Medicine for his paper "Carbon nanotubes introduced into the abdominal cavity of mice show asbestos-like pathogenicity"  (published in Nature Nanotechnology).

* Dr Wolfran Jahn, short-listed in Technology Risk, from the School of Engineering for his paper "Forecasting Fire Growth using an Inverse Zone Modelling Approach" (published in Fire Safety Journal).

* Dr Claire Belcher, short-listed in Climate Change Risk, from the School of Geosciences for her paper "Increased fire activity at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary in Greenland due to climate-driven floral change" (published in Nature Geoscience).

See related article Hot talent in risk research in the Staff Bulletin of the University of Edinburgh.
See press release by Springer.

A novel methodology for simulating tunnel fires

A recent journal paper titled "A Novel Multiscale Methodology for Simulating Tunnel Ventilation Flows During Fires" has recently been published in the journal Fire Technology. Its content is presented here. This is a joint research effort between Politecnico di Torino and University of Edinburgh.

PD NOTE: This paper won this year’s Lloyd’s Science of Risk Prize in the Technology Category. The prize is awarded to academics and aims to keep the world’s leading specialist insurance market abreast of the latest academic knowledge and cutting-edge thinking. See press release by Springer.


In the past decade over four hundred people worldwide have died as a result of fires in road, rail and metro tunnels. In Europe alone, fires in tunnels have destroyed over a hundred vehicles, brought vital parts of the road network to a standstill - in some instances for years - and have cost the European economy billions of euros. Disasters like the Mont Blanc tunnel fire (1999) and the three Channel Tunnel fires (2008, 2006 and 1996) show that fire poses a serious threat.

Comprehensive risk assessments for tunnel fires are not easy to conduct. The development of the possible emergency scenarios is dependent on the combined influence of fire detection technologies, ventilation system, tunnel layout, atmospheric conditions at the portals and the presence of vehicles. Nowadays, the analysis of such complex phenomena is performed using numerical computational fluid-dynamics (CFD) tools. But CFD has a significant drawback: its requires very large computational resources (e.g., weeks or months of computing time). This limitation affects the completeness of the risk analyses because they can only be based on a limited number of possible scenarios but do not explore the wide range of possible events.

This recent paper proposes a novel multiscale modelling approach generated by coupling a three dimensional CFD model with a simple one-dimensional model. This allows for a more rational use of the computational resources. The methodology has been applied to a modern tunnel of 7 m diameter section and 1.2 km in length (similar layout to the Dartford Tunnels in London). Different ventilation scenarios are investigated involving fire sizes ranging from 10MW to 100MW.

The multiscale model is proved to be as accurate as the traditional time consuming CFD techniques but provides a reduction of two orders of magnitude in the computational time. This greatly widens the number of scenarios that can be efficiently explored. The much lower computational cost is of great engineering value, especially when conducting comprehensive risk analyses, parametric, sensitivity and redundancy studies, required in the design or assessment of ventilation and fire safety systems.

The multiscale methodology is the latest contribution to the state-of-the-art in computational methods for tunnel flow simulations. The model has been validated against experimental data of cold flow ventilation and shown to be accurate. This work was published in Building and Environment in 2009. It has also been used to provide the tunnel operator with a comprehensive assessment of the ventilation in the Dartford Tunnels, located under the River Thames about 15 miles east of London. This work was published in Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology in 2010 (open access version).

10th Nov 2010: Fire Safety Engineering in the UK, The State of the Art

The University of Edinburgh is hosting a one day symposium on Wednesday 10th November this year. The symposium is entitled "Fire Safety Engineering in the UK: The State of the Art".

In order to make the event as widely accessible as possible, there will be no fees associated with the event. All delegates and speakers will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation and meals. If there is sufficient interest, an optional buffet lunch and evening dinner may be organised, costs to be confirmed. A book of proceedings will be produced in advance and these may be purchased on the day at a cost of about £10 per copy. Suggestions for affordable accommodation in Edinburgh can be found on the conference website.

It is intended that there will be opportunity for about 15 to 20 presentations throughout the day. It is hoped that the oral presentations would be accompanied by a number of poster presentations as well, demonstrating the diversity and scope of the state of the art.

Three types of presentations will be considered:

1. Presentations giving an overview of the current research activities from a single institution, ideally to be presented by a relatively senior member of academic staff (if from a university) or equivalent,

2. Presentations on a recent or ongoing research project, ideally presented by a current postgraduate student or member of research staff, and

3. Presentations on the application of novel or innovative fire safety engineering practices in real construction projects, either recent, current or in the design phase.

The aim is for representatives from across the range of institutions to present recent research and advances within the broad field of fire safety engineering; including structural fire safety, CFD, flammability testing, structural modelling, fire-fighting practice, fire dynamics, etc.

In order to be considered for one of the oral presentation slots or the poster session, please submit a mini-paper of no more than four pages by 31st August 2010 via the conference webpage [www.fireseat.org]. Full details of the paper format are given on the website. As many as possible of the submitted papers will be selected for oral presentation, the selection will be made in order to present the whole spectrum of activities in the field. Authors selected for oral presentation will be given the opportunity to expand their papers up to ten pages. All other submissions will be invited to prepare posters for the conference. All mini-papers and expanded papers will be reproduced in the book of proceedings.

If you would consider coming to this event, you can submit a mini-paper based on your recent or current work and also recommending this event to your colleagues. It would be great if each institution was represented by both established and junior members.

Prof Torero elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Congratulations to Prof Jose Torero on being elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng).  FREngs are UK's leading engineers and a unique national resource.

Prof Mike Forde said "This is an incredibly competitive award and reflects Jose's personal engineering achievements related to advances in structural behaviour in fire, material flammibility, tunnel fire safety,  contaminant remediation technology and sensor driven emergency response. It also recognises Jose's engineering contributions as an advisor to industry and governments worldwide".

Official announcement can be read here: Academy elects 'unique national resource' to assist in economic recovery, RAEng News Release, 08 July 2010

Congratulations to Dr Colella for his PhD thesis defense

Francesco Colella successfully defended his PhD thesis on the 21st of May 2010 at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. The thesis title is "Multiscale Analysis of Tunnel Ventilation Flows and Fires" and she was supervised by Prof. Romano Borchiellini and Dr Vittorio Verda at Politecnico di Torino, and by Guillermo Rein and Prof Jose Torero at the University of Edinburgh.

Lessells Travel Scholarship for Sam Grindrod

Congratulations to BRE Trust PhD student Sam Grindrod who has been awarded 2010 J M Lessells Travel Scholarship from the The Royal Society of Edinburgh.

The funding (£8,750) is for Sam to travel to Lund University, Sweden for seven months, where he will be collaborating on project M*E*T*R*O, mainly on the medium-scale tunnel fire experiments.

Fire Dynamics during the Channel Tunnel Fires

The following was presented by Ricky Carvel at the 4th International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security (ISTSS) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on 19th March 2010.

Presentation part 1 of 2:

Presentation part 2 of 2:

The audio in these clips was recorded live at the conference and has not been edited. The audio was then synched with a video stream of the presenation slides after the event.

List of 2009 conferences in Fire and Combustion sciences

This list is has been moved to the permanent link:

http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/fire/conferences.html

It will be updated there for the incoming years. Anyone can send to Fire.Research@ed.ac.uk the details of fire-related and combustion-related conferences not listed.

*Events in 2010*

International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security ISTSS 2010, 17–19th March2010, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Sixth International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards, Weetwood Hall, Leeds, UK, April 11th to 16th, 2010.

10th International Conference on Combustion and Energy Utilization to be held in Turkey on the 4th – 8th May 2010.

International Conference Tunnel Safety and Ventilation - New Developments in Tunnel Safety, Graz, Austria, 3-5 May 2010.

6th International Conference on Structures in Fire, SiF’10, June 2-4, 2010 at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan.

International fire prevention symposium, a two-day international symposium organized by vfdb as part of the INTERSCHUTZ (international trade fair for civil security) at the Congress Center Leipzig from 8 to 9 June 2010, Leipzig, Germany.

8th International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, 16-18 June 2010, Lund University, Sweden.

Interflam, 12th international Conference on Fire Science and Engineering, 5-7 July 2010, University of Nottingham, UK.

33rd International Symposium on Combustion, Tsinghua University, August 1-6, 2010, Beijing, China.

*Past Events*

Fire and Materials 2009 Conference, 26-28 January, San Francisco.

APICI (Spain) 5th International Congress on Fire Safety Engineering, 18-20 February, Madrid.

International Conference on Applications of Structural Fire Engineering, 19-20 February 2009, Prague

SUPDET 2009: Suppression and Detection Research and Applications, February 24-27, 2009 at the International Plaza Resort and Spa in Orlando, FL.

FIRES3, Forecasting and modelling wildfire risk for UK moorlands and heaths, 31 March-1 April 2009, Manchester.

4th European Combustion Meeting (ECM 2009), 14 - 17 April 2009, Vienna.

2nd INTERNATIONAL TUNNEL SAFETY FORUM FOR ROAD AND RAIL, 20 - 22 April 2009, Lyon, France, by Tunnel Management International.

European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2009. 19-24 April 2009 in Vienna. Session NH8.1/BG2.9 on "Spatial and temporal patterns of wildfires: models, theory, and reality".

FRT09: Fire Retardant Technologies 2009, 21 - 23 April 2009, Preston - UK. By the Speciality Chemicals and Applied Materials Chemistry Groups of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

2009 Graduate Lecture, Institution of Fire Engineers - 24th April, Arup Campus, Solihull, UK.

Combustion Colloquia dedicated to Prof. D'Alessio, organized by the Italian Section of The Combustion Institute in Naples on April 26-28, 2009.

2009 NIST Building and Fire Research Annual Fire Conference, April 28 - 30, 2009 at NIST in Gaithersburg, MD.

13th International Symposium on Aerodynamics and Ventilation of Vehicle Tunnels (ISAVVT 13), New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, 13 - 15th May 2009

Symposium: Dust Explosion Hazard Recognition and Control: New Strategies, Baltimore, Maryland, May 13-14, 2009.

20th Annual Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials, June 1-3, 2009, Stamford, CT.

2009 Rasbash Lecture, Institution of Fire Engineers - June 4, Defence Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Andover, UK.

6th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium. June 7th to 11th 2009, in Ajaccio, Corsica. Note that a special session dedicated to forest fires is now included in the programme.

Scottish Fire Engineering Network Conference, "Fire Safety Engineering: Enabling Innovation", June 16th 2009, Hosted by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue, SFR HQ Bothwell Road, Hamilton, UK.

Wildfire 2009, 16th & 17th June 2009, Lyndhurst. This is the UK’s only national conference on wildfires.

"Combustion Theory and Modelling" Institute of Physics Spring meeting. London, The Royal College of Pathologists, 24th of June. The 2009 "Huw Edwards Prize for Services to Combustion Physics" will be awarded to Prof Graham Dixon-Lewis during a dinner on the 23rd of June.

86th Annual General Meeting and Conference of The Institution of Fire Engineers, “Fire and Life Safety Engineering – the Impact on Global Communities”, 1 and 2 July, in Glasgow.

4th International Symposia on Human Behaviour in Fire, 13-25 July, Cambridge.

22nd International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, July 27-31, Minsk, Belarus.

12th European Meeting on Fire Retardant Polymers FRPM, 31 August–3 September 2009, Poznan, Poland.

14th International Conference on Automatic Fire Detection AUBE’09, 8–10 September 2009, Duisburg, Germany

The 4th European Summer School on Hydrogen Safety will be held 7-16 September 2009 in Corsica.

One day meeting on "Soots" by the British Section of the Combustion Institute, 16 Sept 2009 at Shell Thornton Research Centre, Chester, UK. See programmer here.

2009 COCCFEA International Workshop on Combustion Simulation and Modelling, Imperial College, London on 17-18 September 2009

The IOP Combustion Physics Group is holding a one day meeting on Current Research in Combustion: A Forum for Research Students and Early Career Researchers on 22nd September 2009 at Loughborough University.

9th International Water Mist Conference 2009, September 23 - 24 2009, London.

Eurofire 2009, Fire Protection Engineering Conference, A mature way forward to save life and property? 24 & 25 September 2009 in Bruges.

Advanced Research Workshop on Fire Protection and Life Safety in Buildings and Transportation Systems, 15-17 October 2009 in Santander, Spain.

SFPE The Annual Meeting and Professional Development Conference and Exposition in Scottsdale, Arizona, October 17-22, 2009.

Fire and Rescue in the 21st Century. How Science and Engineering Support the Fire Service, 3rd FireSeat, Wednesday 4th November 2009, Edinburgh.

National Telford Institute Technical Workshop: A Unified Framework for Performance-Based Structural Engineering under Exceptional Conditions, 16-17 November 2009, University of Edinburgh.

Important accidental fires covered by the media - updated

This is a list updated once in a while with the most interesting fire accidents and events in the media.

PD: Special thanks to Cecilia and Adam for providing most of the information here.
---

* Oct 2009 - Peat fire burning since September in the Spanish National Park Las Tablas de Daimiel in Castilla la Mancha is caused by prologued drought and clearly shows the pipe system feeding air to the subsurface fire. In Oct it was affecting 5 ha of land. The Guardian. El Pais (in Spanish), El Pais 2(in Spanish) (video).




* August 2009 - Peat fires in Indonesia have now become perennial during dry seasons Jakarta Post. See here satellite imagines of Borneo on September 15, 2009. Special report on The Economist.




* August 2009 - Los Angeles Fires out of control NYT. A wildfire raging in the mountains north of Los Angeles spread consuming thousands of acres of national forest land and threatening at least 10,000 homes. The fire was blamed in the deaths of two firefighters who were retreating from flames that overran a camp.



* August 2009 - Greek fires roar with gale force winds. BBC News(video) timesonline. About fifteen thousand residents of Athens's northern suburbs were forced to leave their homes as large areas of forest were burnt. Some residents have refused to leave, choosing to fight the fires with whatever they can lay their hands on. Nearly 2,000 firefighters and soldiers are engaging the blaze on the ground, together with hundreds of volunteers.



* August 2009 - Blame it on turbulent eddies. Timesonline (video). The attempt to break a world record by igniting 114,000 fireworks in less than a minute ended up in a 6.5s explosion witnessed by 200,000 people who lined the seafront in Bournemouth, UK. The managing director blame on the weather forecast.

* August 2009 - Report of Australia's worst peacetime disaster has called for a radical overhaul of the bushfire warning system. BBC News

* August 2009 - Fire chiefs support "fire safe" cigarettes in Scotland. BBC News. Some 44.8% of fire deaths in Scotland in 2007/08 were attributed to the smoking problem. The state of Vermont in the US introduced legislation in 2005 to ensure that all cigarettes were fire safe - and subsequently recorded no fire deaths attributed to cigarettes in 2007 and 2008.

* August 2009 - 4,000 people evacuated in Canary islands. Timesonline. Some 250 firefighters, two helicopters and five planes are involved in tackling a forest fire in island of La Palma, the cause of which is unknown.

* July 2009 - Fire claims four lives in Spain. BBC News(video) CNN. Four firefighters in Spain have been killed while trying to tackle a blaze at a nature reserve in the north-east of the country. Two firefighters also suffered injuries in the incident, the worst to occur since 11 firefighters died nearby in 2005. The fire in Horta de Sant Joan in Tarragona province had been under control but winds revived it, trapping the four firefighters. Some 8,000 hectares (nearly 20,000 acres) have already burned in Aragon, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,600 people. More than 800 Spanish troops are also fighting numerous forest fires across Spain.

* July 2009 - Firefighter dies in Edinburgh pub blaze as floor collapses. guardian.co.uk BBC News(video)

* July 2009 - Indonesia may experience more severe peat fires this year because of an extended dry season raising the prospect of choking smoke blowing across neighbouring states. Reuters.

* July 2009 - Dozens of fire-fighters battled a massive blaze at a club in Edinburgh BBC News



* July 2009 - 17,000 residents flee wildfires in Canada. BBC News(video). Wildfires near a western Canadian city have forced the evacuation of around 17,000 people. More than 150 firefighters are tackling the blazes in British Columbia, with support from 10 helicopters and eight water bomber planes.

* July 2009 - Blaze in Soho, London. BBC News (video) Timesonline (video). A fire at a four-storey office building in Dean Street, Soho, in the historic area of London. 60 firefighters and 12 fire engines attended the fire which witnesses said started in an air conditioning duct in the building.

* July 2009 - Hundreds flee as military drill sparks bushfire in Marseille. Timesonline(video).

* July 2009 - London: Three children and three adults have died after a fire swept through a tower block. BBC News and BBC News



* July 2009 - Accounts of "volcano of fire" around the town of Mojacar in Spain. BBC News(video).

* July 2009 - The derailment of a freight train carrying liquid gas triggered a
massive explosion killing at least 14 people. timesonline(video).

* July 2009 - Aircraft burst into flames on landing at an airport in northern Iran, killing at least 17 passengers. BBC News(video).

*June 2009 - Four escape firebombed restaurant: three bottles of accelerant were thrown through the window. BBC News

*June 2009 - Mexican nursery fire kills many
BBC News. At least 38 children have been killed in a fire that swept through a state-run day-care centre in north-western Mexico, city of Hermosillo. The fire appears to have started in a tyre depot.

*June 2009 Man sentenced to death penalty for 2006 California wildfires BBC News. A court has sentenced a man to death for the first-degree murder of five firefighters by starting an October 2006 forest blaze.

*June 2009 Bus fire kills 25 in Chinese city
BBC News (video). At least 25 people have been killed and 78 wounded in a bus fire in central China, state media reports.

*May 2009 Building fire in frost Antarctica
BBC News. An isolated hut in Antarctica favoured by explorer Sir Edmund Hillary has burnt down after a fuel leak during a routine inspection at minus 35C.

*May 2009 Firefighters tackle blaze in Edinburgh. BBC News. Dozens of firefighters have been tackling a major blaze in the Dalry area of Edinburgh. When the Lothian and Borders firefighters arrived, they found a two-storey warehouse well alight.

*May 2009 Fire in the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels. BBC News(video). Timesonline. "Journalists working in the press room, known as "the bunker", said they had noticed a steady build-up of smoke for 20 minutes before then, but that the smoke detectors had failed to react." There's a "human behaviour in fire" observation. They were aware of smoke for 20 minutes but because nobody raised the alarm, they didn't leave the building! Would the EU increase funding in fire safety now?



*May 2009 Blaze breaks out at Fire Service College in Gloucestershire BBC News(video). "Twelve fire engines are stored in the building at the college in Moreton-in-Marsh along with 1,200 litres of diesel and 500 litres of hydraulic oil. Eleven of the fire engines have been destroyed at a cost of £116,000 each"

*May 2009 Gas Pipe Fire in Russia, 100 m high flames. BBC News(video)
BBC News(video). "A gas pipeline has exploded in Moscow sending flames 100 metres into the air and setting fire to a nearby building. The Russian authorities have shut off the gas supply to the area and are investigating the cause of the blast"



*May 2009 Californians flee deadly wildfire
BBC News(video). "Thousands of people in California have left their homes as a wildfire threatens the town of Santa Barbara. The rapidly-moving blaze has burned nearly 3,000 acres, leading California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency. "

*May 2009 Gaming hall fire in Ukraine
BBC News(video). "10 people have been killed after a fire swept through a gaming hall in eastern Ukraine"

*April 2009 Commuter train on fire
BBC News. "A commuter train had to be evacuated during the morning rush hour after smoke was spotted coming from underneath the train."



*April 2009 Fire in the Coca-Cola building, London BBC News(video)
The Telegraph. "A fire that broke out in building in Hammersmith, west London, has disrupted bus and Tube services. A fire brigade spokesman said the blaze began in an electrical sub-station on the 6th floor of the Coca Cola building in Queen Caroline Street".

Video: Fire Safety in Tunnels: Are Suppression Systems the Answer?

This is a video of the presentation that was given as part of the Institution of Fire Engineers' "Rasbash Lecture" in June 2009. It is presented in two parts.

International excellence in consultancy in fire safety

Edinburgh Global profiles the Fire Group work as "world class expertise that puts Edinburgh on the map as a leading centre for consultancy in fire safety".

Short Review of 2nd International Tunnel Safety Forum, Lyon, April 2009

The 2nd International Tunnel Safety Forum for Road and Rail was held in Lyon, France on the 2oth and 21st April 2009. The conference was organised and sponsored by Tunnel Management International.

This conference marked (almost) the tenth anniversary of my first tunnel safety conference, which was the 1st Int Tunnel Fires Conference in May 1999, also held in Lyon and also organised by TMI. That conference fell two months after the fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel and was attended by about 300 delegates. This year's conference was attended by about 110 delegates.

The conference dealt with many topics relating to tunnel safety, split into the following themed sessions: "Standards", "Materials", "CFD", "Smoke & Modelling", "Operations", "Safety", "Fire", "Detection", "Evacuation" and "Extinguishing".

Presentations came from representatives from five continents (none from Africa) and highlighted differences between approaches to safety in different countries.

While the presentations returned to several of the well discussed topics in the field, such as "Critical Ventilation Velocity" - which has been discussed at every tunnel conference I've been at in the past decade - there were some new discussions. The two new modelling topics which were highlights of the conference were "Multi-Scale Modelling" (mentioned in three presentations) and CFD modelling of airflow which included a moving train.

Two of the most interesting presentations, neither of which is in the proceedings, were presented by Bob Allen from the Sydney Harbour Tunnel company. The first discussed fire tests using extraction and suppression systems in the tunnel (efficiency of smoke extraction is highly dependent on position of the fire relative to the extraction points), while the second presented the "Water Screen" stop signs (see picture) which are routinely used to tell overheight vehicles not to enter the tunnel, and may be used to close the tunnel in an emergency.

The two biggest debates amongst the delegates concerned the issue of 'design fires' for ventilation systems and the utility (or otherwise) of smoke exhaust systems. As is often the case at such conferences, the greatest number of papers were devoted to discussing ventilation strategies and designs for various tunnel projects.

I was also expecting a debate on the issue of sprinklers or water mist systems, yet this did not really come to the fore. The session on suppression came at the end of the conference, and many of the delegates were not keen for a big debate at the end.

I came away from the conference with the feeling that there is still plenty more work to be done, but also that we are at a bit of a turning point in tunnel safety practice. We may well have reached the point of highest complexity in tunnel safety systems. On the basis of what I heard at this conference, it wouldn't surprise me if we see a return to simpler safety systems over the next few years - less complex ventilation systems, conventional sprinklers rather than water mists, and systems designed for smaller 'design fires'. but only time will tell.