Cooperating with firefighters – FIRE TAKES NO VACATION #2: When history burns

03.04.2023

On Saturday, March 25, 2023 the second edition of the event “FIRE TAKES NO VACATION” subtitled “When history burns” took place at the Education Centre for Protection and Rescue of the Republic of Slovenia in Ig, Slovenia. This expert consultation was organized in collaboration with Firefighters’ Association of Slovenia (GZS) and featured presentations from various national and international experts in the field of fire research and fire safety.

This year’s main focus was the task of assuring fire safety in timber and in historic buildings with great inherent value in themselves. The event was moderated by prof. Grunde Jomaas, ERA Chair Holder of the ZAG‘s FRISSBE project. All together 76 participants gathered in the auditorium – mostly firefighters but also representatives from

Aleš Jug, the new president of SZPV, joined this year’s team of lecturers and presented “The Change in Organizational Culture – London Fire Brigade Example.” Andrea Lucherini, a senior researcher in the FRISSBE project, also shared his knowledge and experience with the presentation titled “Fire safety and firefighting challenges in tall timber buildings“.

Prof. José Torero and Friderik Knez, who were already presenters at the last year’s event, presented sequels to their previous presentations. Friderik Knez discussed experiences and lessons learned from experiments performed at ZAG’s Fire Lab including with the newly acquired capacities.

Prof. Torero continued his presentation on the influences of the Grenfell Tower fire on fire safety strategies with an overview of the Public Inquiry on the Grenfell Tower fire. He also gave a keynote lecture on fire safety in heritage wooden buildings, using lessons learned from the Notre Dame fire in Paris to emphasize the importance of performance-based design in ensuring fire safety in historic buildings.

An interesting debate followed the presentations. The participants were asking different topics such as preserving cultural heritage, ways of extinguishing different building materials, specifics on the Grenfell Tower and so on. Torero commented later on the questions being insightful! The coffee break and the networking after the official part were quite ‘chatty’ and at the very end a tour of the premises of the centre was available for interested individuals.