Fire Engineering

Introduction:

Fire engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to protect people, property, and their environments from the harmful and destructive effects of fire and smoke. It encompasses fire protection engineering which focuses on fire detection, suppression and mitigation and fire safety engineering which focuses on human behavior and maintaining a tenable environment for evacuation from a fire. In the United States, fire protection engineering is often used to include fire safety engineering. Fire protection engineers identify risks and design safeguards that aid in preventing, controlling, and mitigating the effects of fires. Fire engineers assist architects, building owners and developers in evaluating buildings' life safety and property protection goals. Fire engineers are also employed as fire investigators, including such very large-scale cases as the analysis of the collapse of the World Trade Center. NASA uses fire engineers in its space program to help improve safety. Fire engineers are also employed to provide 3rd party review for performance-based fire engineering solutions submitted in support of local building regulation applications.

Nature of work:

Create methods dealing with fire prevention.

Inspect buildings and homes for dangerous fire hazards.

Suggest ways minimize dangers.

Plan changes in older buildings to make them safer.

Study dangerous processes or materials and create safety measures for handling them.

Teach workers and managers how to handle fires and best ways to escape.

Advise manufacturers on how to create fire protection equipment.

Inspect buildings for insurance purposes to determine causes of the fire.

Design and install fire safety equipment.

Keep municipal properties safe from fire.

Ensure public observes fire protection regulations.

Hold training sessions on fire protection and prevention.

Evaluate fire departments.

Conduct research on fire retardants.

Design fire detection equipment, alarm systems, and fire extinguishing devices.

Identify potential fire hazards in buildings, such as water supplies, exit locations, and construction materials.

Research methods to extinguish fires and ignition sources.

Advice on how to extinguish large-scale fires.

Personality:

Oddly enough, personality issues can be paramount in a safety engineer. They must be personally pleasant, intelligent, and ruthless with themselves and their organization. In particular, they have to be able to "sell" the failures that they discover, as well as the attendant expense and time needed to correct them. They can be the messengers of bad news. Safety engineers have to be ruthless about getting facts from other engineers. It is common for a safety engineer to consider software, chemical, electrical, mechanical, procedural, and training problems in the same day. Often the facts can be very uncomfortable as many safety related issues point towards mediocre management systems or worse, questionable business ethics.

Professional Courses, Duration and Eligibility Criteria:

Fire Engineering & Safety Management Courses

Course: Graduate level certificate course in health, safety, and environment engineering
Duration: 11 Months
Eligibility: 10 + 2

Course: Postgraduate level certificate course in health, safety, and environment engineering
Duration: 11 Months
Eligibility: Graduate in any discipline

Course: Graduate level certificate course in fire & safety engineering
Duration: 11 Months
Eligibility: 10+2 or above

Course: Postgraduate level certificate course in Fire & Safety Engineering
Duration: 11 Months
Eligibility: Graduate in any discipline

Course: Certificate course in fire & safety engineering (Fireman)
Duration: 6 Months
Eligibility: 10th

Course: Sub fire officer's course
Duration: 9 Months
Eligibility: 12th

Qualification Required:

The eligibility criteria for BE in Fire Engineering is BSc with Chemistry and either Physics or Mathematics or both as optional subjects. The age limit for joining BE is between 19 to 24. The eligibility criteria for certificate and diploma courses in fire engineering are 10 + 2 with Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry or its equivalent examination.

Career Prospects:

A degree in fire engineering makes one eligible for the management cadre in Fire Service in the government or public sector. Fire engineers have always been in great demand by corporations, educational institutions, consulting firms and government bodies around the world. They get employed in Fire Safety departments in local government bodies, insurance companies, architectural and building design, project management, aircraft industry, industrial processing, and other areas of safety concerns. Manufacturing organizations like petroleum refineries, petrochemicals and plastic, fertilizers, textiles, LPG and LNG handling and bottling plants, chemicals and other plants offer enormous job opportunities to fire engineers as they are deemed vulnerable to fire and combustion. Fire engineers may also work as surveyors in insurance companies.

Remunerations:

In the Government sector, the starting gross salary of fire engineers could be in the range of Rs 5,000-7,000 per month. In the case of the private sector, salary on joining may gross around Rs 8,000-14,000 per month.

Sunday, 11 September 2016