Call for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Images – 14th International Symposium

The International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) is delighted to announce a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) image session at the 14th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science (IAFSS2023) held from October 22-27, 2023 in Tsukuba, Japan. For display at this event, you are invited to submit an
image reflecting on the theme of DEI in fire safety science.

Complete details are available here.

Call for Award Nominations

Please review the Call for Nominations for details on the awards to be presented at the 14th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science in Tsukuba, Japan in October 2023.

The deadline for the Proulx and Magnusson Early Career Awards and Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” are October 1, 2022.

13th IAFSS Symposium Invited Speakers Announced

We are please to announce the five invited speakers for the 13thIAFSS Symposium.  The Symposium will be held from April 27 to May 1, 2020 at the University of Waterloo, Canada.  Organized triennially since 1985, the IAFSS Symposium is the premier fire safety science meeting attracting researchers, students, and fire protection engineers from across the globe.  The invited speakers were nominated and voted on by the entire IAFSS Committee.  The final selection takes into consideration proposed topics, geographical region, and gender and is made by the Symposium Program Scientific Co-Chairs.  One speaker is chosen by the local host.  Our five speakers, experts representing a wide range of fire safety topics, are:

Mark Finney:“The Wildland Fire System and Challenges for Engineering”

Mark A. Finney is a Research Forester with the US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory.  He has worked at the Fire Laboratory since 1993 on fire behavior, fire growth modeling and risk analysis, and landscape fuel management.  He leads a fire behavior research team to discover fundamental physical explanations for wildland fire behavior using laboratory and field-scale experiments.  He was responsible for development fire models for the national Wildland Fire Decision Support System.  He holds a Ph.D. in wildland fire science from Univ. California at Berkeley (1991), an M.S. in Fire Ecology from University of Washington (1986), and a B.S. in Forestry from Colorado State University (1984).

 

 

Anne Steen-Hansen: “Learning from fire investigations and research – from reactive to proactive fire safety management”

Anne Steen-Hansen has been professor in Fire Safety Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) since August 2019, and has also a part-time engagement as a Chief Scientist at RISE Fire Research in Trondheim.  She received her PhD on the topic smoke production in 2002. Her field of interests includes materials’ reaction to fire, fire investigation, fire statistics, domestic fire safety, industrial fire safety and fire terminology. Anne is the director of the newly established Fire Research and Innovation Centre (FRIC) in Norway, and is President of EGOLF (European Group of Organisations for Fire Testing, Inspection and Certification) since 2016.

 

 

Erica Kuligowski: “Evacuation Decision-making and Behavior in Wildfires: Past Research, Current Challenges, and a Future Research Agenda”

Dr. Erica D. Kuligowski is a research social scientist in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Group of the Fire Research Division of the Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Kuligowski holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, as well as a B.S. and M.S. in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests are human behavior in emergencies, focusing on decision-making and response of people under imminent threat, and the role that emergency communication plays in this process.

 

 

 

Tara McGee: “Evacuating First Nations during wildfires in Canada”

Tara McGee is a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.  She grew up in Ontario and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo.  Her PhD is from the Australian National University.  Dr. McGee’s research program focuses on the human dimensions of wildfire, including wildfire risk perceptions, evacuation, mitigation and preparedness, and recovery.  Most of her research is based in Canada, including the First Nations Wildfire Evacuation Partnership, and research in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.  She is also engaged in international research.

 

 

Jinhua Sun: “Progress on research of fire behavior and fire protection of lithium ion battery”

Professor Jinhua Sun received his Ph.D. from University of Tokyo in 1999. Now he is the Vice Director of SKLFS and the Director of Energy Fire safety Institute. He has made substantial accomplishments in fire safety in new energies, building and industrial fire safety, fire risk assessment and so on. He has published over 260 SCI journal articles and 11 academic books or book chapters in these research areas. He chaired more than 20 important National and International research programs. He was elected to the “Hundred-Talent Program” of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2002, and he has won the First Prize (1993) and Second Prize (2006) of National Award for Science and Technology Progress.

Call for Papers – The 3rd European Symposium on Fire Safety Science (Nancy, France 12-14 September 2018

 

The 3rd European Symposium on Fire Safety Science will be held on September 12-14, 2018 at the University of Lorraine, in Nancy, France.

Following the conference held in Cyprus (2015), the 3rd ESFSS, will be the third edition of a series of symposia organized in Europe, with the participation of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). The aim is to gather researchers from and beyond Europe to have exchanges and discussions about fire safety science.

The program will have oral and poster sessions for the presentation of fully peer-reviewed papers over the three days, including invited lectures from world’s top fire science researchers.

The 3rd ESFSS will be hosted by the LEMTA, a French laboratory affiliated to the University of Lorraine and the CNRS in Nancy, with the support of the GDR Feux – the French Research Group on Fire.

Researchers, and Practitioners, are invited to submit contributions related to one of the following themes:

  • Material behavior in fire
  • Fire dynamics, structure in fires
  • Wildland fires
  • Fire suppression
  • Evacuation and Human behavior

Special topic: during the conference a special tribute will be also paid to Margaret Law for her work dedicated to fire safety and fire engineering.

Authors are invited to submit short papers (6-pages) that fits within one of the themes.

Papers will be peer-reviewed and accepted communications will be presented either through oral presentations or poster sessions.

Important note: the themes will be interpreted in a broad manner, so authors are encouraged to submit their work, even if it does not fit perfectly into one of the themes.

‘Work in progress’ submissions are particularly encouraged.

Awards

Awards for the best paper, the best poster and the best presentation will be provided.

Publication

All accepted papers, either for oral or poster presentation, will be published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series, an open journal with fast publication process, referenced in Scopus and Web of Science.

In addition, a selection of the best papers will be done, based on the recommendations of the reviewers and with a final decision made by the Symposium Co-chairs.

Authors of selected papers will be asked, if interested, to extend their paper before submission for a special issue in Fire Safety Journal.

Important Dates

  • Paper due: March 15th 2018
  • Notification of acceptance: April 15th 2018
  • Revised Paper submission due: May 15th 2018
  • 2nd ESFSS conference: June 16th to 18th 2018

Cost of Participation

The cost of participation to the 3rd ESFSS is 400 Euros for IAFSS members, 500 Euros for non IAFSS members and 300 Euros for students.

This includes the conference registration, the proceedings, the publication costs in the open journal JPCS, buffet lunches, coffee breaks,the welcome reception and the Conference Gala Dinner.

Paper Submission

The website for paper submission will be available January 15th, 2018. Papers must be submitted no later than March 15th, 2018.

More information in the symposium 3rd ESFSS flyer.

We hope to welcome you in Nancy next september!!

Pascal Boulet, for the organizing committee

Summary of the 12th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science

The Division of Fire Safety Engineering at Lund University hosted the 12th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science on June 10 to June 16. The Symposium was a success in regards to the quality of the papers and posters presented. Furthermore, a record number of participants (> 470) from all continents except Antarctica were present.

The Symposium is the premier fire safety science meeting in the world and has been organized triennially since 1985 by the IAFSS. The program included presentations of more than 119 papers, including ten invited papers that had undergone a full peer review.

The papers were presented in the following seven streams: Material Behavior in Fires (18 papers), Fire Dynamics (26 papers), Structures in Fire (10 papers), Fire Suppression (17 papers), Wildland Fires (17 papers), Evacuation and Human Behavior (9 papers), and papers addressing Additional Topics in Fire Safety (12 papers). The papers are now published as a Special Issue of the Fire Safety Journal that can be accessed online. (Free access for current IAFSS members here.)

In addition to the published papers, a total of 136 posters and a wide selection of fire and combustion images were presented during the Symposium.

The Symposium also featured several workshops on the weekend prior to the Symposium. The IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena organized a one and half day long workshop with focus on experimental validation of CFD-based fire models. Workshops on Quantification of Fire Effluent Toxicity, Large Outdoor Fires and the Built Environment, New approaches to evacuation modelling, Global perspectives of Timber in high-rise buildings and Better Linking Fire Safety Science and Fire Safety Engineering were also organized. All the workshops were fully booked. For the first time there was also a workshop on equal opportunities workshop and women in fire safety science held during the Symposium.

The Symposium was held on the Faculty of Engineering campus at Lund University just a 15-minute walk from central Lund. The delegates enjoyed free public transportation during the Symposium and had the opportunity to see Lund and the surrounding areas. There were also several social activities organized. On the evening of the first symposium day the delegates could participate in a Swedish midsummer celebration at Kulturen in central Lund. The event started with a guided tour and a dance performance, and was followed by a traditional Swedish Midsummer dinner.

On Tuesday evening the delegates had the chance to see the MSB Revinge rescue service collage and training field during. Several of the large-scale laboratories and research experiments at Lund University are conducted at MSB Revinge.

The Symposium Awards Ceremony was held after the last session on Thursday. The awardees were presented with their awards in the University Aula located in the main University Building. The awards ceremony was follow by the Symposium Banquet, which included very nice three-course meal and high quality entrainment.

The local organisation committee is very honoured to have hosted this prestigious symposium and to receive so much positive feedback from the participants. The Symposium would not have been possible without the hard work of the staff at Division of Fire Safety Engineering and the volunteer students!

An image gallery from the symposium is available here, compliments of Michael Strömgren.

Signed:

Local organisation committee of the 12th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science

Awards at the 11th International Symposium

In connection with the  banquet at the 11th International Conference of Fire Safety Science in Christchurch the awardees of the IAFSS and FORUM awards were announced. The awardees are listed below and more information of the different awards can be found on the IAFSS awards page.

 

dinner_venue_11th
The venue of the symposium banquet was the Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch.

 

Emmons Award

  • Professor Michael Delichatsios with a talk entitled “Enclosure and Façade Fires: Physics and Applications”

Kunio Kawagoe Gold Medal

  • Professor Ian Thomas

Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence

  • Dr. Hong-Zeng (Bert) Yu, FM Global, USA, for his paper titled “Physical Scaling of Water Mist Suppression of Pool Fires in Enclosures” (Presented at the 10th Symposium)

Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research”

  • (Europe and Africa) Dr. Thomas Gernay, for the thesis titled “A multiaxial constitutive model for concrete in the fire situation including transient creep and cooling down phases,” Université de Liège, Belgium (2012)
  • (Americas) Dr. Kristopher James Overholt, for the thesis titled “Forward and Inverse Modeling of Fire Physics Towards Fire Scene Reconstructions,” The University of Texas at Austin, USA (2013)
  • (Asia and Oceania) Dr. Chao Zhang for the thesis titled “Reliability of Steel Columns Protected by Intumescent Coatings Subjected to Natural Fires,” Tongji University, China (2012)

Honorable Mentions:

  • Dr. John Gales, for the thesis titled “Unbonded Post Tensioned Concrete Structures in Fire,” University of Edinburgh, UK (2013)
  • Dr. Mélanie Rochoux for the thesis titled “Towards a more comprehensive monitoring of wildfire spread Contributions of model evaluation and data assimilation strategies (Vers une meilleure prévision de la propagation d’incendies de forêt: Evaluation de modèles et Assimilation de données),” CNRS et École Centrale Paris, France (2014)
  • Dr. Steven Verstockt for the thesis “Multi-modal Video Analysis for Early Fire Detection (Analyse van multimodale video voor vroegtijdige branddetectie),” Universiteit Gent, Belgium (2012)

IAFSS Best Poster Award

  • Sung Chan Kim, Jung Yong Kim and Dong Myeong Ha for “An Experimental and Numerical Study of the Effect of Flow Angle on the Probe Constant of Bi-Directional Velocity Probe for Fire Testing” (Kyungil University and Semyung University, Korea).
  • Sullivan Lechêne, Romain Morlon, Elizabeth Blanchard, Caroline Rebuffat, Gilles Parent, Zoubir Acem, Anthony Collin and Pascal Boulet for “On real radiative shielding effect when applying water mist in case of fire.” (CSTB and Université de Lorraine, France).

Best Student Poster Award

  • Xinyan Huang and Guillermo Rein for “Computational Modelling of Smouldering Peat Fires: Predicting the Role of Moisture and Inert Contents” (Imperial College, London)
  • Cristian Maluk, Luke Bisby and Jose Luis Torero for “H-TRIS: Quantified, reproducible and rational thermal exposures for fire testing”

Best Fire Science Image Award

  • Egle Rackauskaite, Xinyan Huang and Guillermo Rein (Imperial College, London, UK) for the image entitled “Fire Watch Constellation.”
  • James White, Eric Link, Taylor Myers, Andre Marshall and Peter Sunderland (University of Maryland, College Park, USA) for the image entitled “Oxidizer Dilution Quenching of a Turbulent, Methane Line Flame.”

Dougal Drysdale Award for Extraordinary Service to the IAFSS

  • Dr. Amanda Robbins: “In recognition of her development of a new federated search tool, the IAFSS Fire ReSearch Engine”
  • Dr. Ron Alpert: “In recognition of his work leading the English Mentoring Program.”
  • Dr. Craig Beyler: “In recognition of his long service to the IAFSS Committee, especially for initiating open access to Association archives, expanding the IAFSS membership, leading the 2014 Nominating Committee, and for mentoring members of the IAFSS Committee.”

The IAFSS would also like to express their appreciation to Committee Members who are now leaving the committee after years of helpful service:

  • Dr. Craig Beyler
  • Dieter Brein
  • Prof. Nicholas A. Dembsey
  • Prof. Yuji Hasemi
  • Carole Franks

 

Awards sponsored by the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors:

The Sheldon Tieszen Student Award
Sponsored by: the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipients:

  1. Franz Evegren (SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden), for “Fire Testing of External Combustible Ship Surfaces,” in the area of Test Development, Diagnostics and Large Scale Experiments.
  2. Frida Vermina Lundström (DBI – Danish Institute of Fire and Security Technology), for “The Effect of Raised Walkway Design on Evacuation Behaviour in Rail Tunnels,” in the area of Human Factors and Risk Assessment.
  3. Patrick Summers (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA), for “Residual Constitutive Behavior of Aluminum Alloys after Fire Exposure,” in the area of Fire Chemistry and Fire Toxicity.
  4. Mélanie C. Rochoux (CERFACS, France), “Towards Predictive Simulation of Wildfire Spread at Regional Scale Using Ensemble-Based Data Assimilation to Correct the Fire Front Position,” in the area of Fire Physics and Fire Modeling.

 

The FORUM Student Travel Award
Sponsored by: the recipients of the 2012 Sjölin Award and the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipients:

Nicholas L. Brogaard and Martin X. Sørensen, for “A New Experimental Rig for Oil Burning on Water – Results for Crude and Pure Oils,” in the area of Test Development, Diagnostics and Large Scale Experiments.

 

The Sjölin Awards

Sponsored by: the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipients:

2012 FDS Development Team – K. McGrattan, H. Baum, G. Forney, R. McDermott, R. Rehm (NIST), J. Floyd (Hughes Associates Inc.), S. Hostikka, T. Korhonen (VTT), W. Mell (U.S. Forest Service).

2013 John deRis (FM Global).

2014 John Hall (NFPA).

 

The Mid-Career Researcher Award

Sponsored by: the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

Recipient:

2014 Patrick van Hees (Lund University).

 

View Photos from the symposium banquet and awards ceremony:

8th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science

8th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science
September 18-23, 2005,Beijing, China

OVERVIEW
The Eighth International Symposium on Fire Safety Science was held at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, from 18-23 September 2005. The symposium was organized by  the China Fire Protection Association (CFPA) with Tsinghua University and University of Science and Technology of China as co-organizers. There were 456 registrants attending three parallel sessions in which 123 papers and 8 invited lectures were presented and a poster session in which 60 posters were displayed. Twenty-five countries were represented: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States of America. Papers and poster abstracts were accepted on the basis of their quality and originality in the science of fire safety and its applications.

The opening ceremony was conducted by representatives from the host country and IAFSS. His Excellency Zhou Yong Kang, Councilor and Minister of the Public Security of the Peoples Republic of China provided the initial remarks followed by Prof. Dougal Drysdale, the IAFSS Chairman.

Following the opening ceremony, Dr. Howard Baum, National Institute of Standards and Technology, delivered the Howard W. Emmons Plenary Lecture entitled “Simulating Fire Effects on Complex Building Structures.” Seven invited papers were also presented during the course of the symposium by Prof. Jean-Marc Franssen, Prof. Dorothy Bruck, Dr. Kevin McGrattan, Prof. Fan Weicheng , Prof. Ai Sekizawa, Prof. Richard Hull (for Prof. Giovanni Camino) and Major General Guo Tienan, Head of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security who delivered a special invited lecture. “The Fire Situation and the Needs for Science and Technology on Fire Protection in China”.

At the Award Reception and Banquet, Prof. D. Drysdale, Chair of the Symposium Awards Committee, presented the Howard W. Emmons Lectureship Award to Dr. Howard Baum. The P.H. Thomas Silver Medal of Excellence for the best paper at the Seventh Symposium was awarded to D.W. Weinert, T.G. Cleary, G.W. Mulholland, and P.F. Beever for their paper entitled “Light Scattering Characteristics and Size Distribution of Smoke and Nuisance Aerosols.” The K. Kawagoe Gold Medal for outstanding lifelong contributions to fire safety science was presented to Prof. Sizuo Yokoi and accepted by his son. Dr. P.A. Croce, Chair of the Forum for International Cooperation on Fire Research, presented the V. Sjolin Award to Prof. Dougal Drysdale in recognition of his contributions to fire safety science.

The Symposium Proceedings include all papers delivered at the Eighth Symposium and available January 2006. Proceedings will be mailed out to attendees and then available for purchase from the IAFSS Secretariat. Papers are organized in the proceedings by the session topics at the symposium. The content of the symposium proceedings have also been recorded in electronic form and provided on CD-ROM in color. The CD will come be included with the hardback proceedings and also available to purchase as a separate item .

The Association would like to thank FM Global for being the principal sponsor of the symposium. In addition, the Association would like to extend its gratitude to all the organizations, committee members, and other volunteers that assisted in making this symposium so successful. A special thanks is given to the organizers, China Fire Protection Association (CFPA), Tsinghua University, and University of Science and Technology of China, who provided first class hospitality as well as an excellent forum for the exchange of ideas on fire safety science. The Association would also like to greatly thank all of those involved in the review, selection, and editing of the papers for the conference. A special thanks is given to Dr. Craig Beyler, Chair of the Program Committee, for organizing and leading the committee on the selection of papers, and all of the program committee members who interacted with authors and reviewers as well as reviewed final manuscripts to ensure all reviewer comments were addressed. Many thanks go to Ms. Judy Hanacek-Kameid along with Ms. U. Isfahani and Ms. K. Tooren of Hughes Associates, Inc. for their great effort in assembling the printed and CD-ROM version of the Symposium Proceedings.

The Chairs of the Publication Committee also wish to thank Dr. Dave Evans, Chair of the Publication Committee of the Seventh Symposium, for his advice and suggestions in preparing this symposium volume.

Daniel T. Gottuk, Brian Y. Lattimer
Chairs, Publications Committee
Hughes Associates, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
October 2005