Ensuring Fire Safety in the face of Climate Emergency

Join international fire expert Professor Luke Bisby, Personal Chair of Fire and Structures within the School of Engineering at The University of Edinburgh for talk 'Ensuring Fire Safety in the face of Climate Emergency - Lessons from Mass Timber Buildings'.

This talk will discuss the regulation of fire safety for the built environment in the context of

English and Welsh Building Regulations and specifically use the fire safety of mass timber

buildings as a lens through which to consider important aspects of the UK building

regulatory system, particularly when architects and structural engineers seek to rapidly

innovate in the face of the Climate Emergency. The key differences between timber

buildings and buildings constructed from non-combustible materials will be highlighted.

Some of the regulatory challenges and changes that have occurred in the UK since the

Grenfell Tower fire - and what these mean for mass timber buildings - will also be

addressed. Professor Bisby will link some of the highlighted issues to a number of the

recommendations made in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Final Report; however, he

will not comment directly on the Grenfell Tower fire.

Where is this event taking place?
University of Liverpool, Central Teaching Hub, Lecture Theatre A

Speaker Bio
Prof Luke Bisby is Personal Chair of Fire and Structures within the School of Engineering at

The University of Edinburgh. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Fire Safety Journal (Elsevier) and

has extensive experience of fire safety and structural engineering research and

consultancy, instruction as expert witness, university teaching and administration,

promotion of public understanding of science and engineering, and wide-ranging

professional activities. His work has been particularly influential at the interface between

structural engineering and fire safety engineering, and Luke advises industrial and

government fire safety research organisations and regulatory bodies internationally. He is a

Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institutions of Fire Engineers and

Structural Engineers, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. For 7+ years, Luke was instructed

as an expert witness to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. His work for the Inquiry included a

detailed forensic study of the external fire at Grenfell Tower, a large programme of

experiments to identify and characterise the reaction-to-fire and system behaviours of

materials and products used within Grenfell Tower’s external cladding system, and a

detailed historical study of fire safety regulation, testing, and previous cladding fires in the

UK. Luke has also previously appeared as a presenter in a range of engineering

documentary television series, including “Impossible Engineering”, “When Big Things Go

Wrong”, and most recently “Disaster Autopsy”.

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