LOVE IT or hate it, the Millennium Dome would not be around if it was not for fire engineering. This methodology – which involves the application of scientific and engineering principles to achieve a building’s fire safety, rather than following the prescriptive rules laid down in Part B of the Building Regulations in England and Wales – facilitates the construction of increas-ingly creative architecture and structures.
Other building projects, including Stansted Airport, the Great Court at the British Museum and the Wimbledon All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, have also utilised fire engineering to allow their innovative design. ‘From a design perspective, the benefits of fire engineering are an ability to develop tailored safety solutions that embrace design aspirations, but also ensure the appropriate form of response in a serious fire situation,’ explains Professor Barbara Lane of fire engineering consultancy, Arup Fire.
But, as this engineering practice has become more prevalent, it has thrown up a number of concerns for the insurance industry, as well as other stake-holders. These were brought together recently in research conducted by Peter Wilkinson, associate director of the Fire Protection Association (FPA).
As part of his report, Has fire engineering lived up to expectations?, he interviewed a range of people, including academics, practitioners, designers and insurers, about the role of fire engineering. 
‘Fire engineering is a very valid and necessary tool when used responsibly,’ says Mr Wilkinson. ‘However, the research was prompted because we have also seen some abuses of fire engineering practices and wondered how widespread the problem is. Although these instances are rare, action needs to be taken to improve the way it integrates with other areas, like insurance. Otherwise the probable outcome is that more buildings will suffer greater material damage and business interruption.’
 
Better understanding
 
The research is welcomed by the insurance industry. Chris Hanks, general manager of Allianz Commercial, says that developments have occurred under the radar in this area. ‘We have seen a number of changes in the way fire safety is incorporated into buildings over the years and this means we do not really know what the outcome of a fire will be,’ he says. ‘This, coupled with changes in building materials, has already resulted in more catastrophic fires and total losses.’
A further complication is that, as well as needing to gain a better under-standing of the risks inherent when the building is completed, insurers have to understand how alterations to the property might affect the fire engineering that is in place. ‘Buildings change hands and their use changes, but the detail of the original design is not passed on,’ says Frazer Argyros-Farrell, senior risk consultant at Marsh Risk 
Consulting. ‘You almost need a manual that stays with the building explaining the fire engineered features and how they affect fire safety.’
All these factors can make it difficult to assess the risks inherent in these buildings. ‘We know how traditional buildings perform in a fire but these buildings have only been around for a few years,’ explains Doug Barnett, head of customer risk management at Axa Insurance. ‘We are seeing more total losses, especially in warehouses, which are more common-place in the UK now anyway, but we 
just do not know how a fire engineered office building, for example, would perform.’
 
Further concerns
 
Another concern, from the insurers’ point of view, is that although fire engineers look at the property protection and business continuity angles, many feel the primary focus is on life safety. ‘Fire engineering 
principles are aimed at life safety and, while saving lives should have a priority, we would like to see a more pragmatic approach, with designers giving property protection more consideration,’ says Graham Page, practice leader for the public sector at Zurich Risk Engineering (UK). ‘We do pick up the bill if something goes wrong.’
Standards within the fire engineering profession also came in for criticism during Mr Wilkinson’s research. A lack of experience through buildings’ lifecycles was cited, as were gaps in qualifications and scepticism about the quality of graduates from universities that are teaching fire engineering.
Bob Johnson, technical survey manager at Ecclesiastical Insurance, says he has witnessed such inconsistency in the fire engineering profession. ‘Different training and experience means the solutions offered by different fire engineers vary greatly, and occasionally it is possible to get a number of very different solutions for one building. 
This can make it difficult to assess whether the proposed design solutions are based on the engineer’s past experience, or whether they are simply theoretical and have no proven track record,’ he explains.
 
Early involvement
 
But it is not just the fire engineering profession that is criticised. Insurers were also censured in the research, with a common view among designers that their only message on managing fire risk in fire engineered buildings is to ‘put in sprinklers’.
Insurers fought back, however, arguing that this is often the only option when they are asked for their input into the property design. Mr Johnson explains: ‘It is not the case that we do not want to get involved in the fire engineering design process but, more often than not, we are not invited to do so, or are only invited to get involved at a very late stage – merely to rubber-stamp the design decisions.’
He, and other insurers, would like to be involved as early as possible in the process. As well as giving the insurer the ability to influence the fire safety measures being taken, such early inclusion in the process would arguably have advantages for the designer. 
Many insurers have their own fire engineers, for example, who could provide valuable insight into the design process – especially from a property protection perspective – and help to ensure properties are insurable.
 
Reducing costs
 
Earlier involvement could also help reduce cost. Mr Page explains: ‘If fire safety measures are included at this stage, it is cheaper. For example, using sprinklers in a school can help to push the design boundaries, allowing large atriums and other interesting spaces. This is good from a design perspective but also reduces the spend on building materials. It can even make this option almost cost neutral. 
If you build, then add sprinklers, the costs can be huge.’
Yet, the state of the insurance market does not help to foster more productive relationships between insurers and designers. With rates having been soft for so long, there is always somewhere to obtain cover. ‘Insurers are often their own worst enemy,’ says Mr Wilkinson. ‘There is always an insurer prepared to take on bad risk.’
Certainly, the hardening of the market and a drop in capacity could force change. Mr Barnett comments: ‘Some of the fire engineered buildings are huge, housing as many as 6,000 people. If rates hardened and capacity fell out of the market, this would drive designers to speak to us earlier on.’
In addition to the difficulties over relationships between the insurers and the designers, other parties are adding to the problem, with the role of the enforcer coming in for criticism. Comments suggest that standards vary dramatically across the UK and that there is a real need for enforcers to be trained as well as – if not better than – the engineers themselves.
 
Principle applications
 
Moreover, with budgets under pressure, there is no investment to provide training on fire engineering. ‘Building control bodies have a lot on their plates and they need to check all aspects of a build,’ says Mr Wilkinson. ‘Quite often, especially with the smaller local authorities, they do not have the experience to assess fire engineered buildings accurately.’
However, an overriding theme from the interviews conducted for his research seemed to suggest fire engin-eering is ‘just accepted, not tested’. 
In fact, many predicted UK fire engineering failures will soon come to light where the application of these principles has been incorrectly used, while others predicted a serious fire that ‘could set back the whole discipline’.
Clearly, with the potential for loss of life and the ramifications of this for the insurance and design communities, there are compelling reasons why these issues need to be addressed. Tackling it through regulation is unlikely to work. Imposing strict rules and guide-lines around how fire engineering can be applied is unattractive. As a performance-based design technique, rules should not be restrictive, or this could hamper the way it works alongside innovative design.
 
Insurer interface
 
Instead, greater collaboration between all the stakeholders to fire engineering will help to lead to better understanding of the techniques and their application within properties. To achieve this, the FPA is also looking at how it can bring some of the parties together. ‘We are focusing on the interface with the insurer,’ says Mr Wilkinson. ‘If insurers want to ensure that a fire engineered building is resilient from property and business protection perspectives, they need to be involved at an early stage in the design process.’
He believes this would require a culture change from both the insurer and the designer. Mr Page agrees but thinks insurers could be more proactive. ‘Insurers have a significant responsibility to make people aware of the fire risks and how fire engineering can reduce them. We have to let the designers understand our expectations. We need to know what is happening,’ he says. While bringing together the two parties may be a major step forward, the involvement of an independent third party, such as the FPA, would be welcomed by many insurers. Andrew Jackson, portfolio manager for property and packages at Brit Insurance, says: ‘Very few insurers would have a problem with their findings. 
We would be more than comfortable for a designer to use them if they did not want to involve us directly.’
 
Workable solution
 
Getting a workable solution is essential. Without one, the consequences are not particularly palatable. ‘The consequences are unknown but they look pretty serious,’ says Mr Hanks. ‘I expect there will be some bad losses and, although the fire insurers will adjust and increase rates to reflect the risk, we possibly stand to lose money on the way.’
Mr Jackson agrees. He likens the situation to that seen around eight years ago with combustible composite panelling. ‘Insurers reacted by increasing rates and looking to co-insure after the industry saw a high level of losses. Then, after the Association of British Insurers and the FPA did a lot of work gauging the quality and fire resilience of these panels, insurers were able to differentiate between good and bad panels,’ he explains.
With the prospect of fire engineered building losses looming large, the insurance industry is keen to take prev-entative steps. ‘In the past, we have seen fire legislation introduced on the back of serious fires,’ says Mr Page.
‘It would be so much better if we could pre-empt this by getting to grips with the issues now.’
While the FPA research and insurer feedback suggests insurance is an afterthought in the design and build process, some are having more success at getting involved at an earlier stage. This is particularly the case for Zurich Municipal with its focus on the public sector. Graham Page explains: ‘Our customers are aware that we like to get involved and do tend to tell us what they are doing. We embrace the fire engineering principles and will guide them through what can be done, as it is much cheaper to incorporate at this stage.’
And, although there is some reluctance from the design community, there is also evidence that some designers are keen for more insurer involvement. For instance, Professor Barbara Lane says that Arup consults with insurers on the majority of its projects. ‘We do not recommend proceeding beyond concept stage without their input. We see their understanding and agreement to our engineered solutions, and the safety levels they are intended to achieve, as fundamental to the value of the building our clients obtain at the end of the design and construction process,’ she comments 
 
Reproduced with kind permission of Post magazine, where this article first appeared on 27 April 2010. 
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The paper by Peter Wilkinson of the FPA is available in the proceedings of this year’s SFPE conference in Lund, Sweden. SFPE members can access it at: http://bit.ly/cfFXq4. His wider research is outlined at www.fire-engineering.info