What is Fire Protection Engineering?

Fire protection engineers apply science and engineering principles to save lives and property from fire. The best engineers in the world bring their skills and talents to bear on this international problem. Grounded in disciplines such as mechanical, civil, structural, electrical, and chemical engineering and the sciences, they often work in teams to apply cutting edge research tools to address the new challenges of the 21st century. The threats of terrorist attacks, the safe use of new composite materials, the impact of natural disasters are just some of the challenges facing today’s fire protection engineers.

Good paying jobs abound in business, government and industry... including consulting engineering firms, petrochemical industries, insurance companies, federal agencies, health care facilities, code enforcement agencies... and the list goes on. The number of jobs consistently outweighs the number of engineers available to fill them.

Fire protection engineers do fire experimentation and research. The perform risk analyses of major industrial facilities and consult with architects on buildings ranging from high rise structures to hospitals, hotels and sports stadiums. They engineer safe buildings, ships, trains, and other facilities using the latest principles of performance based design. Fire protection engineers design egress systems based on human behavior and protective components such as fire sprinkler and alarm systems, exit and smoke control systems. They investigate fires and explosions, and assure safety in diverse areas such as the NASA space program, and the US base in Antarctica.

*Definition Provided by http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/Fire/What/

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