The European Fire Safety Community’s first year anniversary – Reflections on what a Community can do together

One year ago, this Community came to life, and its first members started to join. One year down the line, you are now 595 individuals shaping this Community, all moved by the desire to join forces, pool knowledge and take fire safety to the next level!

For your trust, your curiosity and your enthusiasm to work towards better buildings fire safety in the European Union (and beyond): THANK YOU.

With 2020 coming to an end, it’s time to take a quick look into the rear mirror.

This year the Community relayed opportunities for you to provide your valuable input on a variety of topic by sharing some important surveys including a survey from the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak republic which looks at water supply for firefighting, a survey from the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) Technical Committee Working Group on “Fire Safety Engineering”.

The Facades Advisory panel launched a crucial Comparative study of national fire safety requirements, and with the Advisory Panel’s members’ feedback, Part 1 of the study, which focuses on high-rise buildings has been published. The next two parts will focus on hospitals and schools. The feedback period on hospitals fire safety has started, and the deadline has just been extended to give more members the opportunity to contribute. So, if you want to participate, make sure to join the Facades Advisory Panel.

The Facades Advisory Panel also provided a lot of quality content:

• A long read on « Members of the European Parliament scrutinise the Construction Products Regulation »;
• Reporting on the UK Government taking further steps to improve fire safety, and updates on the webinars for the finalisation of the European approach to assess the fire performance of facades (update 1, update 2).

The Data Advisory Panel published its summary report on Guiding Data Collection Efforts to Improve Fire Safety in Buildings. It also published interviews with experts, including:

• A two-part interview with Casto Lopez Benitez on strategic analysis and data (Part 1, Part 2);
• An interview with Apollo Gerolymbos on fire incident data collection and analysis (Part 1, Part 2).

The Sustainable Buildings Advisory Panel offered a variety of written content exploring buildings’ sustainability and fire safety:

• A guest article on « How fire safe are solar panels? And how can we determine this? » by Saskia Nieuwendijk;
• A conversation with Dr Williams on sustainable buildings in the UK.

Some of your fellow Community Members seized the opportunity to share their experience and expertise through guest articles:

• Marco Antonelli, and Piergiacomo Cancelliere updated us on the new Italian « Circolare 9962 »;
• Melle Keppel, who has been a volunteer firefighter for over 17 years, shared with us his perspective on the newest fire risks and potential solutions to adopt;
• Mira Leinonen shared her testimony « Bolstering Southern Finland’s fire safety since age 7 ».

If you also have specific national insights on fire safety regulation, legislation, initiative or want to share your expertise, do not hesitate to submit a Guest Article to us. You can find our Editorial Guidelines here, as well as complementary information here.

The Community also featured articles from external experts for your benefit:

• A guest article by René de Feijter on « Fire Safety in buildings »;
• An article on the Notre Dame fire on April 15, 2019, by Paolo Vannucci.

In order to facilitate the use of the Community, we also launched the Community Mobile App.

Finally, we capitalised on the digital essence of the Community to provide you with interactive and easy to access content:

• We organised a variety of webinars:
  • Bridging the gap: establishing fire safety terminology, with Dr Kate Nguyen;
  • Assessment of facades fire performance in the future,https://eufiresafety.community/topics/13494/news/323380 with Lars Boström;
  • The importance of Fire Resilient and Sustainable Buildings amid COVID-19 pandemic, with Dr Brian Meacham and Dr Dorin Beu.
• Produced diverse podcasts:
  • Is Big Data Analytics The Future Of Fire Safety Data Collection? With Dr Lori Moore-Merrell;
  • MEP Theresa Griffin’s take on closing fire safety data gaps at the EU level;
  • Drawing lessons from fire investigation data collection to improve EU fire safety, with Mr Mike Burroughs;
  • Insights on the EU project to close data gaps and pave the way for pan-European fire safety efforts, with Mr Eric Guillaume;
  • How can we change facades fire safety for the better? with Andrei Corches;
  • Ventilated-façade systems under fire conditions, with Ms Eleni K. Asimakopoulou;
  • Assessment of facades fire performance in the future, with Lars Boström;
  • How to foster a sustainable future through green buildings? with Fanny Guay;
  • Combining sustainable architecture with fire resilience, with Kjetil Thorsen;
  • Fire resilient and sustainable buildings: the Mjöstårnet case study, with Leif Tore Isaksen.

This first year culminated in our Digital Summit 2020, which was dedicated to « Envisaging a Fire rating Scheme for Buildings ». You were over 200 participants to attend this three-hours event, over the course of which you had the opportunity to interact with speakers and network with fellow community members. Thank you for making this event a success! From what you shared with us afterwards, you really appreciated this format and the different interventions. If you were not able to make it in on the day, all the sessions are available in replay here.

This digital event is only the beginning of the journey to build a Fire Safety Rating Schemes for Buildings. For those of you that have registered your interest to work with us on the cornerstones of this future scheme, we look forward to starting in 2021. We will focus on Work Package 1 (Tech fire safety up), Work Package 2 (Building a model fire safety assessment), and Work Package 3 (Fire safety module for sustainability rating scheme.

We hope you got to explore the Community and what it offered this year. If you have just joined or are still getting to know the platform, be reassured: in 2021 we will ensure you are empowered to use the Community to its full potential! Here are a few of the things you can expect :

• Participation in the Fire Safety Rating Scheme’s Work Packages; Work Package 1 (Tech fire safety up), Work Package 2 (Building a model fire safety assessment), and Work Package 3 (Fire safety module for sustainability rating scheme);
• Networking opportunities;
• Experts presentations & opportunities for you to share your expertise through articles, webinars or presentations;
• Another edition of our Community Digital Summit;
• And much more.

 

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