Chris has over two decades of experience in the fire industry. He first worked in the rail sector on the London Underground (LU), managing the fire safety aspects of the project to ensure any works being undertaken were in accordance with LU standards and the correct assurance processes were followed. Chris then moved into an engineering consultancy role with WSP working on a wider portfolio of projects including: rail and other transport sectors, high rise, residential, commercial/office, retail, heritage, education and industrial. By working in a multitude of sectors at both WSP and Ramboll, Chris has had to apply a range of fire engineering techniques to a variety of situations considering the impact on compliance, functionality, cost, time and safety.
Chris has developed his own quasi-steady state tools for analysing both smoke and people movements as well as applying other recognised tools such as FDS, B-RISK, CFAST and STEPS. As a reaction to the legislative changes brought about by the tragedy occurring at Grenfell, Chris has experience in applying the FN Curve and has been using this to determine the overall risk scale of buildings. This is a useful method for prioritising remedial works at higher risk buildings and identifying optimal risk mitigation solutions. This approach is especially helpful for more complex buildings, fire safety guidance documents BS 9999 and BS 9991 both highlight their limitations for buildings over 50 m and consider the need for a Qualitative Design Review (QDR) above this height.
Chris has a very good theoretical understanding behind the underlying principles of both suppression and detection systems and through this knowledge can evaluate whether the system installed is suitable for the actual application, assess alternatives and provide commentary on the compliance of these systems.
Throughout Chris’ time in consultancy at both Ramboll and WSP, he undertook several third-party reviews on behalf of approvals authorities, developers and contractors to give assurance when advanced performance-based fire engineering techniques have been applied. These focused on both the suitability of the method applied as well as the accuracy of the assessment. In addition, Chris recognises the significance of the inputs used in both quantitative deterministic and probabilistic studies and has found that this will often have significant implications on the output of the studies. He can communicate the sensitivity these inputs may have and advise on how to improve modelling accuracy.
Chris joined Hawkins in September 2024 as a Principal Associate based in our Birmingham office.
