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Latest revision as of 22:34, 2 November 2026

SFPE, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, is an organisation in the United States that represents fire protection engineers.[1] It is based in Bethesda, Maryland.[2] The International Fire Engineering Guidelines (IFEG, 2005) list SFPE among the organisations that publish and provide knowledge for fire engineering.[3] Its publications include the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, engineering guides on subjects such as performance-based design, and engineering standards such as one on calculating fire exposures to structures.[2][4][5]

SFPE has also developed a Canon of Ethics for Fire Protection Engineers, to which the IFEG refer for professional issues outside their own scope.[6] Its publications are used well beyond the United States. In New Zealand, Verification Method C/VM2 (second edition, 2025) refers to the SFPE Handbook for evacuation calculations.[7] In Australia, the 2020 handbook for the Fire Safety Verification Method cites SFPE engineering standards.[8] SFPE is a separate body from the National Fire Protection Association, which publishes the SFPE Handbook and develops codes and standards of its own.[2][9]

Fire protection engineering and the society

SFPE describes fire protection engineering as the application of science and engineering principles to protect people and their environment from destructive fire.[10] In this description the field includes the analysis of fire hazards. It also covers reducing fire damage through the design, construction, arrangement and use of buildings, materials, structures, industrial processes and transport systems.[10] A third part is the design, installation and maintenance of fire detection, suppression and communication systems, and a fourth is investigation and analysis after a fire.[10] In the SFPE wording, a fire protection engineer knows through education, training and experience how fires start and spread, and how they can be detected, controlled or extinguished.[10] Such an engineer can also anticipate how materials, structures and processes behave in fire.[10]

The term "fire protection engineer" is common in the United States, but the IFEG mainly use "fire engineer", which they consider a better international description of the engineer who applies their design methods.[6] The guidelines take their definition of fire engineering from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).[10] In it, fire engineering is the application of engineering principles, rules and expert judgement based on a scientific appreciation of fire, its effects and the behaviour of people.[10] Its aims include saving life, protecting property, preserving the environment and heritage, quantifying the hazards and risk of fire, and evaluating the measures needed to limit its consequences to prescribed levels.[10]

NIST, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, counts SFPE among the organisations that represent engineers, such as the National Society of Professional Engineers.[1] It distinguishes these groups from the organisations that develop codes and standards, and notes that they also provide training, especially where training affects how code provisions are applied in practice.[1] SFPE also carries out periodic surveys of the industry to understand what roles fire protection engineers play.[6] The IFEG list two SFPE periodicals, the Journal of Fire Protection Engineering and the SFPE Journal, among the journals useful to fire engineering professionals.[3] In New Zealand, the IFEG note that fire engineers may be approved for full membership of bodies such as SFPE once they have shown appropriate qualifications and experience. Membership of an institution does not, however, necessarily prove the competence of an individual.[11]

The SFPE Handbook

The third edition (2002) of the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering is copyrighted by SFPE and published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in Quincy, Massachusetts.[2] Philip J. DiNenno was editor-in-chief, with six section editors from consultancies, a university, NIST, NFPA and The Fire Safety Institute.[2] Its 72 chapters, each written by named authors, are grouped into five sections: Fundamentals, Fire Dynamics, Hazard Calculations, Design Calculations and Fire Risk Analysis.[12] Appendices then give data such as conversion factors, thermophysical properties of materials and fuel properties.[12]

Fundamentals and hazard methods support design and risk analysis in the handbook.
The handbook combines specialist technical subjects. Based on DiNenno et al. (2002), pp. iii–vii.

In the preface, DiNenno describes the handbook as a contribution towards documenting and integrating the theoretical and applied bases of fire safety engineering.[13] According to the preface, the rapid assimilation of performance-based design had underscored its importance.[13] The third edition added chapters on heat fluxes from fires to surfaces, water mist systems and computer field modelling, and more material on risk assessment.[13] Part of the new material on radiation heat transfer came from an SFPE technical committee working towards consensus on engineering methods.[13] The editors expected future editions to include the work of several engineering consensus groups aiming at a consensus-based standard of care in fire safety engineering.[13]

Other documents draw on the handbook as well. NUREG-1805, a 2004 report for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, derived the technical basis of its Fire Dynamics Tools primarily from the SFPE Handbook and the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook.[14] The IFEG name the SFPE Handbook among the textbooks that give methods for smoke production, smoke layer height, upper layer temperature and smoke movement.[15] In New Zealand, C/VM2 (2025) refers readers to Section 3, Chapter 13 of the fourth edition (2008) for more information on calculating the required safe egress time and on egress calculation procedures.[7][16]

The textbook Introduction to Fire Safety Engineering also takes values from the handbook. Its walking speeds for different groups, for example, range from 0.58 m/s for people with a walking frame to 1.25 m/s for healthy, unimpeded people.[17] From the same source it takes the smoke potential, which expresses how much light the smoke from one kilogram of burnt material blocks.[18] In fires this is usually 3,300 m²/kg, a generic average for burning building and furnishing materials.[18]

Engineering guides and standards

Besides the handbook, SFPE publishes engineering guides that evaluate calculation methods for particular problems. In the handbook chapter on large hydrocarbon fires, Beyler explains that the methods for radiation from pool fires were evaluated and included in an SFPE engineering guide.[19] In that guide the methods are described in full, their assumptions are identified and their limits of applicability are assessed.[19] The guide also lists available input data and compares the accuracy of the methods with experimental data.[19] These hand calculations range from very crude initial hazard assessments to detailed methods that need more engineering effort.[19] Where a simple method shows that a separation distance is far larger than needed for safety, a more rigorous analysis may not be necessary.[19]

A related SFPE guide of 2000 treats skin burns from thermal radiation in more detail than the handbook.[20] In New Zealand, C/VM2 (2025) points to that guide where occupants escape past more than one window, because the time-dependent build-up of radiation must then be calculated.[21] For computer fire models, SFPE published Guidelines for Substantiating a Fire Model for a Given Application (2011). A 2016 validation study for the NRC names them as a useful reference next to the ASTM standard that the study follows.[22]

Such guidance does not make a calculation tool self-validating. NUREG-1805 asks first-time users to read the whole report before an analysis and to apply its spreadsheet tools only within the limits of their validity.[23] The IFEG add that even an expensive and highly sophisticated computer model does not guarantee accurate results, so all model output must be reviewed and verified.[24] They also describe a hydraulic method for evacuation from the SFPE Handbook, which assumes among other things that all occupants start to leave at the same time.[24]

Scenario inputs pass through a bounded hand calculation and independent plausibility review.
Hand calculations require valid inputs and critical review. Based on Iqbal and Salley (2004), p. xxxix and National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), p. 2.8-4.

SFPE also issues engineering standards. The Australian data sheets for the Fire Safety Verification Method (2020) cite SFPE S.01 (2011), a standard on calculating fire exposures to structures, as a standardised approach to predicting flashover.[5] For fire models, it gives as criteria for flashover an upper layer temperature above 600 °C or a heat flux to the floor above 20 kW/m².[5] The accompanying handbook lists S.01 among the methods for fully developed fires.[8] It names SFPE S.02 (2015) as a source of examples for checking heat transfer models, a process known as validation and verification.[8] In the United States, NIST recommended in 2005 that standards committees draw on the ASCE/SFPE 29 standard for fire resistance design when they address progressive collapse under fire conditions.[25]

Performance-based design

For performance-based design, SFPE published its Engineering Guide to Performance-Based Fire Protection Analysis and Design of Buildings in 2000.[6] The guide is meant for both design engineers and approving authorities.[4] Its stated intent is to help them determine and document that agreed levels of fire safety are achieved for a particular project.[4] Its steps are to define the project scope, identify goals, define objectives, develop performance criteria, develop fire scenarios, develop and evaluate candidate designs, and select and document the final design.[4] The documentation has four parts: a fire protection engineering design brief, a performance design report, detailed specifications and drawings, and a building operations and maintenance manual.[26]

The guide also gives a method for quantifying the fire risk from several fire scenarios. The total risk is the sum, over all fire scenarios considered, of the loss in each scenario multiplied by how often that scenario occurs.[27] Watts and Hall (2002) note that SFPE addresses the basics of fire risk analysis in its publications on performance-based design, and that SFPE task groups were adding further detail.[28]

Other guidance builds on this work. The IFEG drew on the 2000 SFPE guide and on a Code Officials Guide to Performance-Based Design Review that SFPE produced with the International Code Council in 2004.[6] For the United States, the IFEG call both documents good resources for deriving goals and objectives where no performance code has been adopted.[29] They also mention SFPE work towards a consistent method for determining design fires.[29] In addition, the IFEG recommend both guides as a benchmark for third-party reviewers of fire engineering reports.[30] In New Zealand, C/VM2 (2025) lists SFPE, with the IFEG and British Standards, among the publishers of internationally recognised documents on the fire engineering brief process.[31]

Uncertainty and limits

SFPE guidance does not remove uncertainty from performance-based design. Notarianni (2002) describes a review of the design process in the SFPE guide and of several case studies of real designs.[4] The review found seven barriers to documenting that agreed levels of fire safety had been reached.[4] The first two are performance criteria that are not established or agreed, and an unspecified process for choosing design fires.[32] Others are assumptions about human behaviour, poorly documented limits of fire models and model outputs given as single values.[32] The last two are engineers working beyond their expertise and the lack of a standard way to include the reliability of fire protection systems.[32]

Each barrier can lead to switchover, in which reasonable changes in inputs, scenarios or parameters change the decision on whether a design is acceptable.[4] In one example, two engineers who had both followed the current design guidelines for real buildings chose very different performance criteria.[32] Because model predictions are compared with such criteria, the same design can pass under one set and fail under another.[32]

Changed criteria, scenarios, behaviour and model assumptions lead to different acceptability outcomes.
Uncertainty can change a design from acceptable to unacceptable. Based on Notarianni (2002), pp. 5-43–5-44.

Human behaviour is a particular source of uncertainty. Proulx (2002) warns that research has shown some traditional assumptions about behaviour in fires to be wrong.[33] She also cites the observation that the hydraulic model of evacuation assumes occupants who are alert, able-bodied and ambulatory, and deals only with movement, not with the time people take to start.[33] Notarianni adds that one internationally used egress model assumes that all occupants are readily mobile and leave as soon as they hear an alarm.[32] Experience shows that this is often not the case.[32]

The handbook also has practical limits. Some of its equations, tables and charts keep US customary units because their data were originally developed in those units.[13] Its notice states that neither the publisher nor the authors guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the contents, and that they supply information and opinion rather than engineering services.[2] Where such services are needed, the notice advises seeking the help of an appropriate professional.[2]

Ethics and professional practice

One of SFPE's contributions to ethics in fire safety engineering is its Canon of Ethics for Fire Protection Engineers, which the IFEG quote in part.[34] Its preamble calls fire protection engineering an important learned profession whose work has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life of all people.[34] The services of fire protection engineers therefore require honesty, impartiality, fairness and equity, and must be dedicated to protecting and enhancing public safety, health and welfare.[34] Engineers are expected to maintain and constantly improve their competence and to act with balanced regard for the interests of the public, clients, employers, colleagues and the profession.[34]

Three fundamental principles follow from the preamble. Fire protection engineers use their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare.[34] They are honest and impartial and serve the public, their employers and their clients with fidelity.[34] They also strive to increase the competence and prestige of their profession.[34] The IFEG state that the canon deals with professional issues outside their own scope and should be consulted as appropriate.[6]

SFPE also has a role in education. After its World Trade Center investigation, NIST named SFPE in 2005 among the organisations affected by its recommendation to develop continuing education for fire protection engineers, structural engineers and architects.[35] It also named SFPE for training material on computational fire dynamics and thermostructural analysis tools.[35] For NIST's report on the active fire protection systems of the World Trade Center, an SFPE engineering programmes manager supplied introductory and summary material.[36] Its purpose was to give all readers a common basis for understanding the results.[36]

Relationship with NFPA and with regulation

SFPE and NFPA are separate organisations with different roles. NFPA develops and publishes consensus codes and standards, whereas NIST groups SFPE with the organisations that represent engineers.[9][1] The IFEG list the two as distinct bodies that publish fire engineering knowledge.[3] They work together on publications: SFPE holds the copyright of the SFPE Handbook and NFPA publishes it.[2] NIST also named both in 2005 for work on standard methods for multi-floor design fire scenarios.[25]

SFPE guides and standards are not regulations in themselves. A NIST report on the World Trade Center explains that trade associations and professional societies develop practices that may guide how buildings are designed and built.[37] Such practices are not strictly enforceable unless a code refers to them, but they represent a consensus of what is reasonable or prudent.[37] Where a regulatory document does refer to SFPE material, it does so selectively. C/VM2 (2025), for example, cites the SFPE Handbook and an SFPE guide only in particular comments and clauses.[16] Showing compliance with the New Zealand Building Code through C/VM2 still requires each of its ten design scenarios to be satisfied.[31]

C/VM2 is meant for professional fire engineers who are proficient in fire engineering modelling methods.[31] They are expected to apply appropriate judgement to model inputs and results.[31] The IFEG likewise allow engineering judgement where valid methods or verified data are not available, but require all quantification based on it to be justified in detail.[38] For the United States, they give the fire engineer the task of evaluating a performance design and the authority having jurisdiction the task of assessing and approving it.[39]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 National Institute of Standards and Technology (2005), p. 201.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 DiNenno et al. (2002), pp. iii–iv.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), pp. 0.5-6–0.5-10.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Notarianni (2002), p. 5-42.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Australian Building Codes Board (2020a), Data Sheet B1, p. 12.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), pp. 0.1-1–0.1-4.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2025b), pp. 26, 33.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Australian Building Codes Board (2020b), pp. 109, 113.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Iqbal and Salley (2004), p. E-1.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), pp. 0.3-1–0.3-2.
  11. ↑ National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (New Zealand), p. 0.4-2.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 DiNenno et al. (2002), pp. v–viii.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 DiNenno et al. (2002), pp. ix–x.
  14. ↑ Iqbal and Salley (2004), p. xxxvii.
  15. ↑ National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), p. 2.5-2.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2025b), p. 61.
  17. ↑ Van Rossum (2027), §7.4.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Van Rossum (2027), §6.4.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 Beyler (2002a), p. 3-272.
  20. ↑ Beyler (2002a), pp. 3-308, 3-313.
  21. ↑ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2025b), pp. 34–35.
  22. ↑ Stroup et al. (2016), p. 1-3.
  23. ↑ Iqbal and Salley (2004), p. xxxix.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), p. 2.8-4.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 National Institute of Standards and Technology (2005), pp. 206, 212.
  26. ↑ Notarianni (2002), p. 5-60.
  27. ↑ Meacham (2002), p. 5-161.
  28. ↑ Watts and Hall (2002), pp. 5-6–5-7.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), p. 0.2-9.
  30. ↑ National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), pp. 0.3-8–0.3-9.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2025b), p. 7.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 32.5 32.6 Notarianni (2002), pp. 5-43–5-44.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Proulx (2002), pp. 3-342–3-343.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 34.4 34.5 34.6 National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), p. 0.4-2.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 National Institute of Standards and Technology (2005), pp. 222–223.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Evans et al. (2005), p. xxvii.
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Lew et al. (2005), p. 142.
  38. ↑ National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), p. 1.8-10.
  39. ↑ National Research Council of Canada et al. (2005), Part 0 (United States), p. 0.2-11.

References

  • Australian Building Codes Board. (2020a). Data sheets: Fire Safety Verification Method (Handbook annex, Print version 1.1).
  • Australian Building Codes Board. (2020b). Handbook: Fire Safety Verification Method (Print version 1.1).
  • Beyler, C. L. (2002a). Fire hazard calculations for large, open hydrocarbon fires. In P. J. DiNenno, D. Drysdale, C. L. Beyler, W. D. Walton, R. L. P. Custer, J. R. Hall Jr., & J. M. Watts Jr. (Eds.), SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering (3rd ed., pp. 3-268–3-314). National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
  • DiNenno, P. J., Drysdale, D., Beyler, C. L., Walton, W. D., Custer, R. L. P., Hall, J. R., Jr., & Watts, J. M., Jr. (Eds.). (2002). SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering (3rd ed.). National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
  • Evans, D. D., Peacock, R. D., Kuligowski, E. D., Dols, W. S., & Grosshandler, W. L. (2005). Active fire protection systems (NIST NCSTAR 1-4). National Institute of Standards and Technology.
  • Iqbal, N., & Salley, M. H. (2004). Fire Dynamics Tools (FDTs): Quantitative fire hazard analysis methods for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fire Protection Inspection Program (NUREG-1805). U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
  • Lew, H. S., Bukowski, R. W., & Carino, N. J. (2005). Design, construction, and maintenance of structural and life safety systems (NIST NCSTAR 1-1). National Institute of Standards and Technology.
  • Meacham, B. J. (2002). Building fire risk analysis. In P. J. DiNenno, D. Drysdale, C. L. Beyler, W. D. Walton, R. L. P. Custer, J. R. Hall Jr., & J. M. Watts Jr. (Eds.), SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering (3rd ed., pp. 5-153–5-175). National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
  • Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. (2025b). Verification Method C/VM2: Framework for fire safety design (2nd ed.).
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2005). Final report on the collapse of the World Trade Center towers (NIST NCSTAR 1).
  • National Research Council of Canada, International Code Council, Department of Building and Housing, & Australian Building Codes Board. (2005). International fire engineering guidelines (2005 ed.). Australian Building Codes Board.
  • Notarianni, K. A. (2002). Uncertainty. In P. J. DiNenno, D. Drysdale, C. L. Beyler, W. D. Walton, R. L. P. Custer, J. R. Hall Jr., & J. M. Watts Jr. (Eds.), SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering (3rd ed., pp. 5-40–5-64). National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
  • Proulx, G. (2002). Movement of people: The evacuation timing. In P. J. DiNenno, D. Drysdale, C. L. Beyler, W. D. Walton, R. L. P. Custer, J. R. Hall Jr., & J. M. Watts Jr. (Eds.), SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering (3rd ed., pp. 3-342–3-366). National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
  • Stroup, D., Lindeman, A., McGrattan, K., Peacock, R., Overholt, K., Joglar, F., LeStrange, S., & Montanez, S. (2016). Verification and validation of selected fire models for nuclear power plant applications: Supplement 1 (NUREG-1824, Supplement 1; EPRI 3002002182). U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research; Electric Power Research Institute.
  • Van Rossum, E. (2027). Introduction to Fire Safety Engineering. Fire Safety Academy.
  • Watts, J. M., Jr., & Hall, J. R., Jr. (2002). Introduction to fire risk analysis. In P. J. DiNenno, D. Drysdale, C. L. Beyler, W. D. Walton, R. L. P. Custer, J. R. Hall Jr., & J. M. Watts Jr. (Eds.), SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering (3rd ed., pp. 5-1–5-7). National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
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