Qualifications

[jokar]

What qualifications are available to people for work in the Fire Safety field?

[wee brian]

I did a diploma in Building Control Suveying, fire safety was one of the units.  These days the diploma has been replaced by a degree course.

[Pip]

I did a HND in Fire Engineering at a local college-but it really was just a paperwork exercise to achieve a 'nationaly' recognised qualification-it used all my 'fire safety' courses done at the FSC as Approved prior learning (old FSC Fire safety A, B,C,D&E courses), so the course consisted of maths, science,building construction,a bit of law and H&S-all stuff I had done before either in Station officer exams or when I did a HND in Science in my much much younger days.I did some extra work to bump the H&S bit up to a NEBOSH qualification.There used to be  'fire Safety Studies' and 'Fire safety engineering' degrees thru the Fire Service College.

[Fishy]

•   Fire Engineering BEng
•   Fire Safety management BSc;
•   Fire Engineering MEng;
•   All the grades of IFE membership;
•   All grades of the IFE Engineering Council Division;
•   IFPO membership;
…and there must be loads of diplomas, IOSH-type qualifications, etc, etc…

Why do you ask?

[jasper]

did a Bsc (Hon) Fire Safety

[jokar]

No pun intended but just fishing.  It was a follow on from an earlier item about competent risk assessors.  I have FS and HS qualifications and have attended a number of FRA courses from a variety of providers including the HSE.  Jim Creak made an observation about references and whilst that could be important, in certain cases the client has no idea what they are getting.

As far as I am aware, the only BeEg and BSc provider is at Preston, which doesn't help the southerners amongst us.

[John Webb]

South Bank used to run Degree Courses with Fire Safety elements, if not wholely on FS. Have they given up?

Leeds do BSc, MSc and short courses - again not much use to us in the south.
The Preston one is the University of Central Lancashire, who are currently looking for a Lecture/Senior Lecturer in FSE.
The University of Greenwich has a Fire Safety Engineering Group - I'm not certain what they currently do but those seeking info might like to try http://fseg.gre.ac.uk
And for those well north of Preston there is of course the University of Edinburgh who had the first Chair in Fire Safety. Try www.lifelong.ed.ac.uk perhaps, at least for their CPD courses.

In a more specialized area, Loughborough University run courses for FS Management in Healthcare.

(All the above revealed by a quick thumb through the current IFE/FPA Journal.)

[AM]

The FPA do a range of courses including a diploma in fire safety. I'm doing a course in fire modelling at the FSEG at Grenwich, and that combined with an evacuation modelling and a research disertation can be used as part of a Masters in Fire engineering