Fire Safety Engineering
Fire safety engineering consultancy for buildings — from CFD fire & smoke modelling to passive protection, sprinkler design, means of escape and fire risk assessment
Fire safety in a modern building is rarely settled by a single calculation or a single code clause. It runs from how a fire and its smoke actually behave in a complex space, through to how the building’s passive protection, sprinklers and escape routes are designed to control that fire and get people out safely. Acrefine’s fire safety engineering consultancy covers that full range. CFD fire and smoke modelling is the most sophisticated part of the work and the centre of our fire practice — and our fire engineering consultants work across sprinkler design, passive fire protection, means of escape and fire risk assessment on the same projects, so the pieces are designed together rather than in isolation.
CFD Fire & Smoke Modelling
Prescriptive fire codes don’t fit every building geometry. Atriums, multi-storey voids and complex escape routes routinely fall outside what a rulebook can cover — and that is where performance-based design, backed by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), becomes the evidence a project needs. We define the design fire (Heat Release Rate / HRR profile and its justification), build the model in FDS, test it for mesh sensitivity, and assess the results against tenability criteria. The same approach extends to smoke control in atriums, corridors, basements and enclosed car parks, and to jet fan and pressurisation system verification.
Offerings:
- Design fire definition and scenario matrix development
- FDS modelling with Smokeview visualisation
- Mesh sensitivity analysis and tenability / ASET-RSET assessment
- Atrium, corridor and basement smoke modelling
- Enclosed car park CO management and smoke extraction optimisation
- Jet fan placement, pressurisation system verification and CFD peer review
- Sprinkler and Passive Fire Protection Design & Consultancy
Sprinkler and Passive Fire Protection Design & Consultancy
Sprinkler systems and passive protection — fire-resisting compartmentation, fire stopping, fire-rated doors and structural protection — work together with a building’s active systems to contain a fire and slow its spread. We size and lay out sprinkler systems and specify passive protection measures so that the two are coordinated with each other and with the building’s escape strategy, rather than designed in isolation.
Offerings:
- Sprinkler system design and hydraulic calculations (BS EN 12845, BS 9251; NFPA-based design for international projects)
- Passive protection specification: compartmentation, fire stopping, fire-rated construction
- Coordination between active and passive protection measures
- Review of architectural and building services drawings
- Fire safety strategies
Means of Escape, Fire Risk Assessment and Fire Strategy
Getting people out of a building safely depends on escape routes and travel distances that reflect how the building is actually used, and on a risk assessment that reflects real occupancy — not a generic rule of thumb. Our consultants calculate means of escape and travel distances against Approved Document B, BS 9999 or BS 9991 as applicable, assess fire risk for new and existing buildings, and write the fire strategy that ties a project’s fire safety measures — passive protection, sprinklers, CFD, escape routes — into a single coherent document.
Offerings:
- Means of escape and travel distance calculations
- Fire engineering input to planning and building control submissions
- Fire risk assessment for new and existing buildings
- Holistic fire strategy reports
- Gateway 2 and Building Safety Evidence Packs
Gateway 2 and Building Safety Evidence Packs
Higher-Risk Buildings (HRBs) in the UK pass through the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) three-gateway process, and construction cannot start until Gateway 2 building control approval is granted. That approval turns on regulator-ready documentation: the design fire and its justification, the scenario matrix, boundary conditions, mesh sensitivity study, tenability criteria and the supporting fire strategy — assembled as a single, defensible evidence pack. Acrefine builds that technical evidence pack across CFD modelling, analysis and fire safety documentation. Final responsibility for the fire strategy stays with the project’s registered fire engineer; our work exists to make that engineer’s process faster and better evidenced — not to substitute for it.
For mission-critical facilities where downtime is the real risk, see our data centre safety engineering service.
How We Work: Our Fire Engineering Services
This work is carried out by an experienced fire engineering team working across UK and international frameworks, including NFPA-based design for projects outside the UK. Acrefine’s role is the technical analysis, modelling and documentation; final fire strategy sign-off rests with the project’s appointed fire engineer holding the competency the project requires (UK: Institution of Fire Engineers chartered status and, where applicable, the HRB Competency Register). Our work is built to make that engineer’s process faster and better evidenced — not to substitute for it.
Standards and Technical Basis
CFD and performance-based design work is carried out within the BS 7974 framework and its published documents — PD 7974-1 (fire initiation and development), PD 7974-2 (smoke spread) and PD 7974-6 (human factors / evacuation) — with modelling substantiated against the FDS verification and validation basis (NIST) and SFPE guidance on substantiating fire models. Gateway submissions follow the Building Safety Act 2022 / HRB gateway regime. Sprinkler design is carried out to BS EN 12845 or BS 9251 (or NFPA 13 internationally); smoke control to the BS 7346 series and Smoke Control Association guidance; means of escape to Approved Document B, BS 9999 or BS 9991. The applicable standards set is confirmed project-by-project against the building’s regulatory context.
Contact us for a scoping call.