Why understanding people is vital to fire engineering

Human factors is an area of study that considers the decisions we make and the actions we take in certain situations and the processes that influence what we do. The more we know about human factors, the better we become at just about everything we do as fire engineers.

For this reason, the IFE is developing a special interest group (SIG) to interrogate what we know about human factors so far and how this can be applied in the future to help save the lives of first responders and building occupants.

The Human Factors SIG is the brainchild of our global IFE chair Mark Chubb. With a long history of investigating fatal fires since the 1980s, Mark has seen how important human factors have been in the poor outcomes of these fires. Such investigations, as well as academic research have the power to disrupt how we do things, especially where we are relying on out-dated processes or assumptions.

The objective for the new SIG will be to capture knowledge and insight into human factors from around the world, organise that information, identify areas that need further research and find funding for that research.

The aim is to deepen our understanding of human factors to help everyone in fire engineering from product and system designers through to first responders to better protect their teams and communities from loss of life incidents.

A particular area of focus will be decision making; decision making under time pressure, high stakes decision making and decisions where more time and stakeholders are influential.

The SIG will look at the decision-making models that experts in the military use and models that civilians use. We will also be looking at how can AI and machine learning influence and help us to analyse situations.

We will be looking at how you operationalise decision making and what tools can help. How should systems, alerts and signage be redesigned to take advantage of technology and apply what we have learned from past incidents?

Some of the rules in our existing regulations and legislation are not well-founded and need revision. We will be testing assumptions in our regulatory documents that are outdated, such as walking speeds and the most appropriate width of exits. They also need more flexibility to take account of human factors such as the type of occupants in the building and whether they have additional needs.

The range of scenarios where civilians and indeed firefighters have died are varied and complex, but all deliver learnings that can inform and improve future fire engineering.

As the IFE prepares to lead the people pillar of the International Fire Safety Standard's campaign Decade of Action on Fire Safety, the aim of the group will be to harness knowledge from around the world as well as examining how advances in technology and data can help shape solutions.

It is a unifying theme for all fire engineers and we are actively looking for people to join the SIG who can bring the diverse areas of expertise needed to help us to shape improvements.

Some of the best cognitive science work is being done in the UK, particularly in the areas of aviation safety and complex systems, looking at how errors happen. With climate change impacting on communities around the world this too, will be an important driver in understanding how human behaviours are changing to adapt.

Anyone who would like to be part of this exciting initiative should email?[email protected]?to register their interest.