Host Website Call for Papers | Author Instructions | Manuscript Submission | Posters & Images | Workshops | MaCFP

The International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) is proud to announce that the 12th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science will be held on June 12–16, 2017 at Lund University, Sweden.

The Symposium has a has a dedicated website where you can find more information about arrangements and scheduling. The call for papers is also available below. Author Instructions are available for those preparing a manuscript for submission, which can be submitted following the Manuscript Submission instructions. Posters and Fire Science Images can also be presented at this symposium. A number of Sunday Workshops prior to the symposium will be held, as well as the First Workshop Organized by the IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (MaCFP).

IMPORTANT NOTICE: For the 12th IAFSS Symposium, and this for the first time, the Proceedings will be published as a Special Issue of the Fire Safety Journal (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/fire-safety-journal). Details on the transfer of the manuscripts from the EasyChair website used by IAFSS to the Elsevier website used by Fire Safety Journal as well as details on the composition of the guest Editors team responsible for final publication decisions are still being worked out and will be clarified in the coming few weeks (Fall 2016).

Invited Speakers

Luke Bisby (University of Edinburgh, UK) “Structural Response of Cross-Laminated Timber Compression Elements Exposed to Fire”

Karen Boyce (University of Ulster, UK) “Safe Evacuation for All – Fact or Fantasy? Past Experiences, Current Understanding and Future Challenges”

Ritsu Dobashi (University of Tokyo, Japan) “Studies on accidental gas and dust explosions”

Longhua Hu (University of Science and Technology of China) “A review of pool fire behaviors in wind and challenges”

Birgit Östman (SP, Sweden) “Fire safety engineering in timber buildings”

Call for papers

The Symposium is the premier fire safety science meeting in the world and has been organized triennially since 1985 by the IAFSS. The program will have parallel sessions for the presentation of fully peer-reviewed papers over the five days of the Symposium, including invited lectures from the world’s top fire science researchers. Symposium activities will begin on Sunday, June 11 with several workshops during the day and a Welcome Reception in the evening. The Symposium will also have poster sessions which will provide an excellent opportunity to interact individually with researchers about their most recent work. Students are encouraged to participate and awards will be granted for the best student presentations. In addition to the technical sessions, numerous social activities are planned to cater for informal meetings with colleagues and friends. There will also be a wide range of entertainment and tours in the companion program. Southern Sweden combines rural and urban areas, as well as a marvellous nature within a well accessible area.

Host Venue

The Symposium will be held at the Technical Faculty Campus at Lund University (http://www.lth.se/fileadmin/virtuell_flygtur/en/). Lund University is a world-class university and it is ranked as one of the top 100 Universities in the world. The city of Lund was founded around year 990 and in 1085 the first school was founded in the city, which makes Lund the oldest seat of learning in Scandinavia. Lund University was officially founded in 1666 and today it has over 42,000 students enrolled. There has been active and well-known research in Fire Science at Lund University since the 1960s. The Division of Fire Safety Engineering (http://www.brand.lth.se) is involved in both bachelor and master programs in Fire Safety Engineering, with a yearly enrollment of around 60 new students in these programs.

The Lund city center is accessible due to its small size, which makes it easy to travel both by foot and by the well-developed public transport system. There are also very good connections with the rest of the region and the world. The international airport in Copenhagen is only 35 minutes away by train. Copenhagen airport is the largest airport in Scandinavia and easy to reach from most major international airports.

Registration and Accommodation

Symposium registration and hotel booking for participants and their companions will be available via links from the Symposium website at http://www.iafss2017.se in late 2016. The registration will include online access to full papers and posters.

Research of Interest

You are invited to submit a contribution that advances scientific understanding and/or presents new ideas in the entire spectrum of fire safety science. The topic areas include:

  • Material Behavior in Fires (including Ignition, Pyrolysis, Flame Spread, Flame Retardants, Smouldering)
  • Fire Dynamics (including Compartment Fires, Pool Fires, Fire Plumes)
  • Fire Emissions and Toxicity
  • Tunnel Fires
  • Structures in Fire
  • Fire Suppression
  • Wildland Fires
  • Explosions and Industrial Fires
  • Evacuation and Human Behavior
  • Special Topics (including Fire Safety Engineering, Environmental Fire Impact, Sustainability, Fire Forensics)

Full papers and poster abstracts will be accepted on the basis of their quality and originality in the science of fire safety and its applications. Routine applications of established knowledge and case studies with no generalized results are not appropriate for the Symposium. Refer to prior Symposium proceedings for further information on the scope of contributed papers (http://www.iafss.org/publications).

All accepted and presented papers will be included in the Symposium Proceeding, Fire Safety Science, and will be electronically published by IAFSS (http://www.iafss.org/publications). All papers will have an assigned DOI and will be part of the CrossRef system, including citation indexing. This assures wide dissemination of the contributions and assures that citations of the papers are fully recognized. Additionally, the option of publishing accepted papers in a fire-research-related peer-review journal is being explored by the organizers and further details on the publication options will be made available before the submission deadline.

Requirements

Papers: Must be original work. The same paper must not have been submitted to another forum.

Style: All papers must be in English. Detailed information for authors on style, including paper length, format, etc, and a paper template will be available via a link on the IAFSS web page (http://www.iafss.org). The Symposium offers an English mentoring program. However, the mentoring service will be provided on the basis of technical merit of the paper and the reviewers’ recommendation. Poorly written papers will not be considered.

Oral Presentation: Oral presentation of the paper at the Symposium must be made by an author.

Review Process

Submitted full papers will receive at least two independent peer reviews. Reviewers will be appointed by members of the Program Committee. Final decisions on acceptance or rejection of a manuscript will be made by the 12th Symposium Program Co-Chairs.

Authors will be notified of the Program Committee’s preliminary decision by January 15, 2017. Notifications will include reviewers’ comments and if accepted, detailed style guidelines for the final version of the paper, and the deadline for delivering a revised version in which all reviewers’ comments have been addressed (February 15, 2017). Authors will be notified of the Program Co-Chairs’ final decision by March 15, 2017. This final decision will be based on compliance of the revised papers with both the reviewers’ comments and the formatting requirements of IAFSS publications.

Submitting Your Full Paper

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, beginning September 15, 2016, through the Symposium author web page that will be available via a link on the IAFSS web page (http://www.iafss.org).

The submission deadline for papers is October 15, 2016. Papers submitted after October 15, 2016, will not be considered.

Submitting Your Poster Abstract

A Call for Posters will be issued in Summer 2016, which will provide details on poster abstract requirements. Posters may describe work in progress, or completed projects. To assure the inclusion of recent research, the submission deadline for poster abstracts is March 31, 2016. Poster abstracts will be reviewed by the 12th Symposium Program Committee.

12th IAFSS Symposium Timeline

Full Papers

October 15, 2016                 – Submission deadline for full papers

January 15, 2017                 – Authors notified of preliminary accept/reject decision

February 15, 2017               – Deadline for submission of the revised accepted papers

March 15, 2017                    – Authors notified of final accept/reject decision

Posters

Summer 2016                      – Call for poster abstracts

March 31, 2017                    – Submission deadline for poster abstracts

April 15, 2017                       – Authors notified of accept/reject decision

May 15, 2017                        – Poster submission for web posting

Symposium

May 31, 2017                        – Web publication of all papers and posters

June 12-16, 2017                – 12th IAFSS Symposium

Additional Information

If you would like more information on the arrangements for the upcoming Symposium, please contact the Local Host Committee at http://www.iafss2017.se.

Symposium Chair

Professor E Galea, Chair, U Greenwich, UK

Professor K Boyce, Co-Chair, Ulster U, UK

Symposium Host Committee Chair

Professor D Nilsson, Lund U, Sweden

Symposium Proceedings Editors

Professor E Weckman, U Waterloo, Canada

Symposium Awards Committee

Dr A Hamins, Chair, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA

Symposium English Language Mentoring Program

Dr C Wade, Building Research Association of New Zealand, New Zealand

Symposium Program Committee

Professor B Merci, Co-Chair, Ghent U, Belgium

Professor A Trouvé, Co-Chair, U Maryland, USA

Professor N Liu, Poster Chair, U Science Technology China, China

Dr T Hakkarainen, Workshop Co-Chair, VTT Technical Research Ctr. of Finland, Finland

Dr A Steen-Hansen, Workshop Co-Chair, SP Fire Research, Norway

Members

Professor L Bisby, U Edinburgh, UK

Professor R Carvel, U Edinburgh, UK

Dr M Chaos, FM Global, USA

Professor B Dlugogorski, Murdoch U, Australia

Professor R Dobashi, U of Tokyo, Japan

Dr S Dorofeev, FM Global, USA

Dr R Fahy, National Fire Protection Association, USA

Professor C Fleischmann, U Canterbury, New Zealand

Professor JM Franssen, U Liège, Belgium

Professor M Gollner, U Maryland, USA

Professor R Hadden, U Edinburgh, UK

Professor Y He, U Western Sydney, Australia

Professor S Hostikka, Aalto U, Finland

Professor H Ingason, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden

Professor A Jeffers, U Michigan, USA

Prof. G Jomaas, U Edinburgh, UK

Dr S McAllister, USDA Forest Service, USA

Dr R McDermott, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA

Professor B Meacham, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA

Professor Y Nakamura, Toyohashi U Technology, Japan

Professor V Novozhilov, Victoria U, Australia

Professor G Rein, Imperial College, UK

Professor T Rogaume, Poitiers U, USA

Professor A Sekizawa, Tokyo U Science, Japan

Professor A Snegirev, St Petersburg Polytechnic U, Russia

Professor M Spearpoint, U Canterbury, New Zealand

Professor A Stec, U Central Lancashire, UK

Professor S Stoliarov, U Maryland, USA

Dr Y Wang, FM Global, USA