Description

The objectives of the AFEG are to:

• provide a link between the regulatory system and fire engineering (Part 1)
• provide guidance about the process of fire engineering (Part 2)
• provide guidance on available methodologies (Part 3)
• describe the AFEG’s philosophy of use (Part 4).

The AFEG is a process document. Its purpose as a National Construction Code (NCC) support document is to provide guidance. The use of a mandatory format was discussed before the development of both the first and second editions of IFEG, and again for the AFEG. It was concluded that fire engineering lacks the necessary array of validated tools and data to produce a mandatory document.

Fire engineering designs are complex and generally require extensive use of engineering judgement. So, in order to approve a fire engineering design, appropriate authorities need an understanding of the fire engineering process and what constitutes an acceptable fire engineering design. Therefore, guidance is required to improve both the standard of fire engineering applied by practitioners, and the ability of the appropriate authority to carry out their function of safeguarding the community.

Scope

This document provides guidance to the fire engineering fraternity in designing fire safety systems to achieve acceptable levels of safety. The AFEG assumes that FEs have a level of competence and experience that would enable accreditation by an appropriate body. For example, accreditation to the Engineers Australia National Engineering Registry (NER) scheme.

The AFEG has been written explicitly for dealing with life safety. It may be useful in property protection, business continuity and post-fire incidents, but only to the extent that these areas would be considered applicable by the stakeholders.