UK At The Mercy Of The Elements
One knows, however, that the science of hydraulics is well established and, as in the case of fire engineering, presumably, by applying the science, water engineering would allow us to predict problems, rather than have to wait for the flooding to occur, and then to proverbially plug the hole in the dyke. Those of us in the fire profession know fully well that when the major fire occurs in the UK, as inevitably it will, we won't be ready for that either, and once again, it will be our colleagues in uniform who will limit the damage. Why is this?
Most of the construction in the UK is built in compliance with Guidance Documents produced by Government in support of regulations which exist in one form or another within all of the regions. This guidance can take the form of 'stable-door-shutting' solutions. We are sure they would be applicable, if only we built buildings as we did 40 years ago, out of the same materials and of the same dimensions and for the occupancies as we did then. Sadly we do not. Economics and manpower shortage have demanded that we build buildings quicker, less expensively and with a less skilled work force. Properly educated qualified fire engineers are able to predict the consequences of a fire in this new environment, but our regulatory controls are incapable of adopting the solutions necessary to offset such events because there is no historic evidence to demonstrate that we need to introduce such measures. Unfortunately this reluctance could also be because there is a lack of confidence in the fire engineering profession!
To some extent one has to have sympathy with this latter view because at present the formal levels of education and training are nowhere near adequate for this profession. Whilst there are no minimum requirements covering the educational qualifications and the knowledge of practising fire engineers within our legislation there is no incentive for the cream of the engineers to join our profession. Why are we so scared of recognising qualifications and making it mandatory for practitioners to have them? Any increase in the need for recognition of our engineers should start right at the top to ensure that the educational curriculum represents those core skills that a good fire engineer must have. Once this is in place it should be a subsequent requirement that anybody dealing in a design of a building that has life safety implications must have a minimum standard of education and be a corporate member within the discipline. As a society we don't let a person with 2 'A' Levels transplant kidneys and yet only one life is at stake under such situations. We will, however, happily allow people with 2 'A' Levels to design buildings where thousands of lives may be at risk in any one fire event.
We will never know how much the flood prevention industry mirrors the fire engineering industry, but one cannot help but look for parallels.
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