Join us for this half-day workshop in Brisbane.

Workshop summary

The ATS has established a diverse, representative Working Group to progress an updated revision of Australia’s tunnel fire safety standard AS4825.  It is proposed to be titled “Fire in Tunnels”, covering fire safety and asset resilience.  The governance around how an appropriate level of fire safety is demonstrated and accepted for a tunnel is an extremely important topic to be covered by such a standard.  Australia has unique legal and political requirements, and Australian fire engineering practice has a diverse set of approaches, there is a need to ‘ventilate’ and share views on the approaches applied, and learn what we can from other jurisdictions.

This workshop will provide a forum for working group members, industry stakeholders and fire engineering practitioners to engage on the issue.  It is not primarily a training session, although it will certainly be informative, and worth attending for that purpose alone. It will be a wide-ranging discussion / debate, presenting and challenging ideas, with an outcome of consensus as to how, out of the options, a standard should give guidance on this matter for the Australian context.  A position paper will be produced, that will also inform the drafting of the new standard.

The panellists, who bring leading experience in tunnel fire engineering in Australia and internationally, will each make short presentations, curated with the goal of eliciting technical discussions, and suggestions topics for inclusion or exclusion for the updated draft standard.

Overseas panellists will join online.  Australian participants are strongly encouraged to attend in person.

Moderator: Nigel Casey

Nigel is a careful, accurate thinker, whose career has seen him ponder the issues on fire risk acceptance in major underground road and rail projects, from a government perspective.  He has been active on the Austroads Tunnel Taskforce, and in raising and prosecuting risk-related development projects.

Rapporteur: Diane Mather

Diane is the driving force of AS4825 revision, taking on the task of capturing the outcomes.

Panelists:

• Bernhard Kohl, foremost practitioner in tunnel safety and risk analysis, based in Austria but practicing globally, including on the Australasian DG method with Conrad Stacey.
• Michael Beecroft, leading the contributions to AS4825 from fire brigades (AFAC), a fire safety engineer working for the Queensland Fire Department, with experience working in private industry and consulting.
• Craig Hiscock, a tunnel fire safety and tunnel systems technical director with design delivery and design review experience.
• Amer Magrabi, Society of Fire Safety Representative and former AS 4825:2011 committee member.
• David Radcliffe, Rail industry ‘wise elder’ and Strategic Adviser to Suburban Rail Loop, representing owners and operators.
• Ingo Riess, a leading Zurich-based tunnel ventilation and safety consultant, with experience in Australia and many other countries.
• Conrad Stacey, Chair of the AS4825 Working Group, well known in the underground ventilation and fire engineering industry internationally.
• Arnold Dix, Australia’s celebrity tunneller, barrister and International Tunnelling Association President, keeping us on a sound legal basis.

Participants:

You (we very much hope), particularly if you want to contribute.

Details:

Date:  11 October 2024

Time: 1 pm to 5 pm, with breaks, followed by refreshments and erudite discussion till late.

Cost: Free in person (also free on-line, but you don’t get any post-event refreshments or erudite discussion that way).

Location: eVENT Space, 4/35 Limestone St, Darra, Queensland, 4076.  On-street parking is available.  eVENT Space is a 10 to 15 minute walk from the Darra train station, which has direct services from the city and indirect services from Brisbane airport, with transfer at one city station.  Pickup and drop-off at the station will also be arranged for anyone requesting it.

The session is supported by the Australian Tunnelling Society and by the Society of Fire Safety. It is sponsored by Stacey Agnew through their eVENT Space.

Registration:

To register your interest to attend please click here. To make other enquiries, email event@staceyagnew.com.