Fire engineering guides
Plain explanations of the UK fire safety framework, written for people who have to defend a design rather than pass a quiz. Every page names the standard and the edition it relies on, and carries the date it was last reviewed.
Regulation
The Building Safety Act regime: what counts as higher-risk, what the Gateways require, and what has to be kept.
Gateway 2 explained
What Gateway 2 requires, what must be in a building control approval application, current determination times, and the difference between invalidation and rejection.
11 min readThe second staircase requirement
When a second staircase is required in new residential buildings over 18 m, what the transitional arrangements say, and how 'sufficiently progressed' is judged.
8 min readThe golden thread
What the golden thread of information is, when it starts, what has to be in it, who holds it, and the practical failures that make it worthless.
7 min readMeans of escape
Travel distance, exit capacity, stairs and the numbers behind them.
Structure and compartmentation
Fire resistance, compartment lines and the evidence that supports them.
External walls
Space separation, cladding and the appraisal of existing external wall systems.
BR 187 space separation
How boundary distance is derived from radiation: the 12.6 kW/m² criterion, view factors, unprotected areas, and how the enclosing rectangle method works.
9 min readPAS 9980 explained
What PAS 9980:2022 is, what a fire risk appraisal of external walls involves, how risk ratings are reached, and how it relates to EWS1 and remediation programmes.
10 min readPractice
Fees, tooling and how the work actually gets done.
AI in fire engineering
An honest assessment of where AI helps in UK fire engineering (drafting, review, consistency checking) and where using it would be professionally indefensible.
10 min readWhat a fire engineer costs
UK fire engineering fees in 2026: day rates, what a fire strategy costs by project type, why higher-risk buildings cost more, and how fees are structured.
8 min readFundamentals
ADB, BS 9991, BS 9999 or BS 7974?
How Approved Document B, BS 9991, BS 9999 and BS 7974 relate to each other, when to use each, and why you cannot mix provisions between them.
9 min readWhat is a fire strategy?
What a UK fire strategy report contains, who writes it, when it is needed, and how it is structured against Requirements B1 to B5 of the Building Regulations.
9 min readHow these are written
Every guide is written against the current published edition of the documents it cites, and states which edition that is. Where guidance is genuinely silent or contested, it says so rather than inventing a clause. Where a number can be calculated, there is a free calculator that shows the working.
None of it is engineering advice. It is background for a competent person who will exercise their own judgement on a specific building.