The Building Research Establishment (BRE) has issued new guidance and technical data for use in the fire safety design of a building, allowing engineers, regulators and the rescue services to better assess the impact a fire may have on the means of escape or on a building's structure.
The report 'Design fires for use in fire safety engineering', provides a reference guide to data recorded from full-scale fire tests conducted by BRE Global and is aimed at professionals involved in the fire safety engineering design process, either as designers fulfilling a brief or as regulators/approvers of the design.

'Published reliable data is scarce and fire safety engineers often resort to a simple generic description based on assumption,' said the authors, Chris Mayfield and Danny Hopkin.

'So the objective of this publication is to provide technical data and guidance for defining a robust, appropriate and acceptable design fire for the fire safety engineering design of a building.'

Design fires for use in fire safety engineering is available from www.brebookshop.com or by calling +44 (0) 1344 328038, ref. FB 29.