Sometimes you can be working on a task and no matter how you approach the problem, you just can’t seem to find the answer.  Or, you can, but you’re not exactly sure that you’re doing the right thing.

It’s a common issue, regardless of whether it’s a work-related problem or not.  The question that resounds in our minds every time we make a decision: ‘Am I doing this right?’

The problem is, for those of us working within the fire industry, one poor judgement or one oversight could be the difference between being deemed competent or not.  There isn’t really much room for a margin of error, because one poor judgement could mean all the difference to those in the building if there was to be a fire.

Thankfully, the FIA creates a wide range of technical documents across a wide range of disciplines to give facts and guidance to the industry.  These are written by FIA members who sit on the appropriate FIA Councils and by our Technical Team to the highest possible standard, using their years of experience and encyclopaedic knowledge of legislation and Standards.

For the uninitiated (and for our new members who may not be aware), the FIA has 7 Councils representing a different area of the industry.  These are:

• Fire Detection and Alarm Council (predominantly products-based)
• Services Council (for those that provide fire protection services)
• Extinguishing Council (representing a range of extinguishing means)
• Fire Risk Assessment Council (which advises and guides on the legal and best practice requirements for Fire Risk Assessment)
• Fire Engineering Council (for Chartered Fire Engineers to guide the industry)
• FIRESA (comprised of Fire and Rescue suppliers)
• Export Council (for those that export their products globally)

Under each of these is a range of working groups, filled with technical experts who write the technical guides that you probably receive via our weekly email, Focus (if you don’t, sign up).

But how does each Council decide what guidance to issue? And what if there is that problem that you’re not sure about?

If there is a specific issue relating to fire protection, and you are a member of the FIA, you can speak to one of our Technical Managers, as they are the secretaries for each Council.  They will listen to your query and if you request it, they can escalate your query and take it to the next Council meeting to be discussed – if Council agrees that your query needs to be made into a guidance document then they’ll ask the working groups to start writing.  Once published, voila – one guidance document based on your query!

And for posterity, ease of searching, and so that you don’t have to keep wading back through your inbox, all of our technical documents and guides are available to download – free – in our online technical document library.

The benefit of this is that you get the guidance that you need, in one downloadable document (free!), and it also helps others in the industry with the same problem as they will also receive the document via our weekly email.

We've made a handy chart for you to see who you need to speak to raise your technical query. See below:

Will Lloyd, Technical Manager & Secretary	Fire Risk Assessment Council Fire Engineering Council
Robert Yates, Technical Manager & Secretary	Fire Detection and Alarm Council
Robert Thilthorpe, Technical Manager & Secretary	Services Council  Extinguishing Council
David Smith, Manager & Secretary	FIRESA Export Council

Got a technical query? Phone us: 0203 166 5002 and ask for the appropriate technical manager/secretary.

Or visit our technical library>>