Structural fire engineering is not widely understood by those outside the discipline. Many people confuse structural fire engineering with fire protection engineering, and fire safety engineering. The confusion may arise from the different terminology used by different people in different parts of the world.

Basically, the terms ‘Fire Safety Engineering’, ‘Fire Protection Engineering’ and ‘Structural Fire Engineering’ can be established in the hierarchy as illustrated in the figure. In a simple statement, "Fire Safety Engineering is a multi-discipline to determine fire safety strategy for buildings under fire conditions, in which structural stability and control of fire spread are achieved by providing active and/or passive fire protection. Structural Fire Engineering deals with specific aspects of passive fire protection in terms of analysing the thermal effects of fires on buildings and designing members for adequate load bearing resistance and to control the spread of fire."

In principle, structural engineers should be aware of all the requirements relating to fire safety in the building regulations. A very common performance requirement is that “Any building shall be designed and constructed so that, in the event of fire, its stability will be maintained for a reasonable period.”

So, it is important to understand the basic fire safety measures for buildings and learn the benefits of applying Structural Fire Engineering to achieve these goals.

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