Building Regulation Amendments: Evolving the Fire Engineering Role

Vol 1, Design stage. Written by Csaba Szilagyi .

There have been significant changes in legislation in the last few years. These changes impact the whole industry, including clients, developers, designers, and contractors. In this article, I would like to focus on fire engineers and write about how I see the changes in our profession. This article provides a broader perspective, focusing on the evolution of fire engineering as a profession, rather than concentrating solely on Higher Risk Buildings (HRBs). It is about how the work of a fire engineer is changing as I see it. I have spent time reading and researching it, and sharing it with the fire engineering community seemed like a good idea to help others.

The Building Safety Act 2022 is large and complex legislation, that introduced a lot of changes to various regulations. Based on my experience, people are well aware of the Building Safety Act. However, they are probably less aware of The Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023, which has amended The Building Regulations 2010. Some of the changes introduced the duties and competency requirements for clients, designers, principal designers, contractors, and principal contractors. In this article, I will not detail all the changes and the roles of the different duty holders; instead, I will focus only on the fire engineers. This is how I see the changes as a fire engineer. I know that BSR takes the view that these changes are not new and should have been followed already. However, I still see more changes coming in fire engineers' day-to-day work than in other disciplines.

None of these new requirements directly mention the fire engineer. The requirements regarding the design stage are about the client, principal designers and designers. Therefore, the first question is whether the fire engineer is a designer. There are different definitions of “design” but in this context, the important one would be the definition in the Building Regulations. There are different opinions among fire engineers about this. It is true that fire engineers do not design exact building elements like other designers do. Put simply, fire engineers do not draw lines in the design that will later materialize as physical building elements. However, we influence and instruct other designers on how to draw those lines when it comes to fire safety design. I imagine lawyers could argue the case on this, but I believe the sensible approach is for fire engineers to make sure they comply with the obligations of designers under The Building Regulations 2010.

To understand better how fire engineering is changing, we need to take a look at the past. Fire engineers used to write fire safety reports for the different stages of the building design. The fire safety reports described the fire safety precautions that other designers needed to incorporate into their design. This report was issued, and then other designers carried out their work. Sometimes, architectural drawings were sent back to the fire engineer to check fire compartmentation lines, but most of the design was not cross-checked by the fire engineer unless there was a specific question. So primarily, the fire safety design was a one-way street where the fire engineer set the requirements and other designers carried out their work following these requirements.

If the other designers correctly interpreted the fire strategy and if they carried out the designs of the various fire precautions in accordance with it, and if the contractors correctly installed the fire precautions in accordance with those designs, and if there were no unforeseen issues, then the actual construction should be fine. But there’s a lot of “if”s in that sentence, and actual experience shows that actual buildings are often not in accordance with the fire strategy Fire safety design of buildings is getting increasingly complex with time. In my opinion, we reached a complexity where the competent fire engineer should check the fire safety design to ensure the design intent is achieved. Following that the fire engineer should carry out site checks of the construction to make sure that the actual building is as intended.

The Building Regulation now requires the designers to cooperate with each other to the extent necessary to ensure that the design is in compliance with all the relevant requirements. Whilst that is open to a certain amount of interpretation, given that there is plenty of evidence that in the past actual designs/construction often do not comply with the fire strategy, as I see it, the necessary extent would require the fire engineer to cross-check all the design elements that have requirements described in the fire safety report. The level of this review would probably depend on the complexity of the design and the importance of the building. Any design, including fire safety elements, should be carried out collaboratively between the fire engineer and other designers, such as architects, structural, mechanical, electrical, and other engineers. The fire safety design should be two-way communication and work between the fire engineer and other designers until both parties are satisfied that the design complies with all the requirements.

The regulations also introduce the new role of the Principal Designer that includes taking all reasonable steps to ensure that the design work of all designers is coordinated so the design is in compliance with all the relevant requirements. The Principal Designer is now required to make a statement that they fulfilled their roles described in The Building Regulations. It is hard to see that “all reasonable steps” doesn’t include the fire engineer reviewing the designs of the key fire precautions to make sure they comply with the fire strategy.

I believe that Principal Designers should only make that statement when they receive the equivalent statements from the designers of the key fire precautions about fulfilling their roles, including the fire engineer. The designers’ statement should be about cooperation to the extent necessary to ensure that the design complies with all the requirements.

As a fire engineer, I can only make that statement if I have seen the designs in accordance with the fire safety reports unless a specialist designer (e.g., smoke control, suppression systems) carried them out. However, some elements of these designs could be cross-checked as well.

I see that these new requirements will dramatically change how fire engineers work. In the future, we, as fire engineers, will be more involved in design than ever before.

In my next articles, I will write about my views on how these changes will impact fire engineers’ work during the construction stage, as well as the impact of the competency requirements.