The 'Characterisation of fire for design purposes' project was undertaken by BRE's Fire Division FRS for the UK government's Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR). See http://projects.bre.co.uk/frsdiv/designfires

The aim of the four-year project was to obtain quantitative data on the growth rates of a number of realistic design fires; this data could then help fire safety engineers, designers and regulators when they design fire safety systems.

The object was to establish a database of specific fire characteristics for at least 12 realistic fire scenarios; characteristics included heat release rates, smoke production rates, CO/CO2 ratios and gas concentration levels, with sprinklers both in and out of operation.

Fire engineering assessments frequently depend upon assumptions made about the rate of fire growth. This is important to the design of the means of escape, particularly where smoke control is involved, and to the assessment of structural fire resistance. Since there is a limited number of accepted design fires at present, their applicability to particular situations is uncertain; this data is an important influence, therefore, in developing a consensus on the underlying design fire assumptions.