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2024 Summer School in Poland
To allow fire professionals and early-career researchers a science-based insight into the performance-based design for fire safety of buildings, a group of established researchers from ZAG (FRISSBE) and ITB organized the 2024 Summer School titled Fire Fundamentals for Performance-Based Fire Safety Design. The event took place from the 1st to the 8th of September, in Warsaw and Gdansk (Poland).
The summer school featured an international assembly of lecturers who not only delivered lectures but also stayed, socialized, and exchanged ideas with the attendees throughout the week. The organizing committee was keen to ensure a close lecturer-to-student ratio, which fostered a dynamic and engaging learning environment.
Four researchers from FRISSBE attended the event, Prof Grunde Jomaas and Dr Andrea Lucherini participated as lecturers and were also members of the organisational board. While Martin Veit and Nik Rus attended as participants.
Among the lecturers were Prof José Torero (University College London), Dr Michael Spearpoint (OFR Consultants), Dr Ruben van Coile (Ghent University), Dr Martina Manes (University of Liverpool), Prof Bart Merci (Ghent University), Dr Wojciech Węgrzyński (ITB) and Dr Michael Woodrow (University College London).
The lecture topics covered essential areas such as fire behavior (including ignition and flame spread), smoke and heat control, evacuation strategies, probabilistic performance-based design, and various tools and approaches for designing fire-safe premises. These sessions led to fruitful discussions among both the lecturers and the audience, many of which continued informally outside of the scheduled sessions. Participants also had the chance to present their own research or work during a poster session. Two competitions were held, one judged by the lecturers and another by the participants, to award the best poster presentations.
Fire Laboratory Visits and Practical Demostrations
The summer school also offered participants the unique opportunity to visit two fire laboratories operating in Poland. Attendees were able to tour the facilities, participate in demonstrational experiments, and meet the teams behind the lab operations.
On Wednesday 4th, a full day was dedicated to visiting the ITB Fire Testing Laboratory in Pionki, 105 km from Warsaw. Participants explored three different demonstrational tours where they learned about ITB's experiments and equipment for fire-related testing. The first tour focused on fire resistance testing, showcasing various furnaces, including the largest vertical furnace, which surpasses even those at Logatec Fire Laboratory. The second tour highlighted façade testing, demonstrating the use of IR cameras and projectors to display real-time temperature data of materials exposed to fire. The third tour took participants to the wind tunnel and smoke corridor, where they experienced simulated evacuation conditions with realistic visibility and heat exposure.
The official summer school activities concluded on Friday 6th, but participants were invited to extend their stay and visit the Baltic Fire Laboratory in Gdansk on Saturday 7th. Bogdan Racięga, head of the laboratory and a member of the summer school community, led a demonstration of the tests conducted at the facility. The highlight included observing the operation of sprinkler and water mist systems for active building protection, as well as a car burn to showcase the effectiveness of such systems in preventing fire spread between vehicles in car parks, Ro-Ro vessels, and other vehicle storage areas.
Acknowledgment to Sponsors
The success of the 2024 Summer School would not have been possible without the support of the event's sponsors, who contributed resources that allowed some participant fees to be waived and enhanced the overall experience for everyone involved.
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