FIRE SAFETY ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT OF TUNNELS

Fire safety management must be integrated into fire safety engineering during the concept and design stages of a tunnel project; techniques such as computer modelling of smoke movement need to be used with awareness of their management impact. This paper examines the relationship between fire safety management and engineering for the effective design of fire safety systems in tunnels. Past experience shows that many fires in tunnels could have been avoided with better management procedures and compliance with those procedures. Current research in the UK Fire Research Station (FRS) aims to ensure that the fire safety engineered systems put into occupied structures allow properly for their impact and dependence on fire safety management. The paper outlines the roles and tasks of the fire safety manager and fire safety engineer, especially in relation to each other. For example, active fire safety systems should be properly maintained and tested, passive fire safety systems should not be allowed to become ineffective, and the system structure should be managed in a way that conforms to assumptions. Some lessons from the Kings Cross fire, with 31 fatalities, and the Summit Tunnel and Channel Tunnel fires, without fatalities, are outlined; FRS staff were involved in the on-site investigation of all those fires.