Fire Safety Challenges in the 21st Century

Abstract

The twentieth century was a time of great change and growth in society as well as in fire safety. As we begin a new century, it is important to reflect on these changes, as well as the fire safety challenges in the future.

These challenges go beyond the day to day work of fire protection engineers. This paper reviews challenges that exist in the areas of fire prevention, firefighter safety, and fire protection.

The overriding fire safety challenge we face is to focus on reducing the cost of fire to our society. This will require national and international leadership, focus, resources, and motivation. The key to our future success is research: policy, scientific, and field research. Through these efforts, we can come to understand the fire problem, what fire safety efforts and measures are effective, and how these effective measures can be implemented to reduce the cost of fire in our society.

This paper is based on Dr. Beyler’s 2000 Guise Medal Lecture.

Keywords

fire prevention firefighter safety fire protection research costs safety performance-based design fire codes and standards test methods education fire losses prescriptive requirements fire safety design

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