The World Trade Center disaster was a singular incident, but it highlights the fact that structural engineers are not all educated in fire protection.

Contrary to what the general public assumes, structural engineers are rarely involved in the decision-making process on fire safety issues. Undergraduate and post-graduate structural engineering curricula do not usually contain any courses specifically addressing fire resistance, and most structural engineers know little about fire protection. Structural design codes do not contain any requirements with regard to the ability of structures to withstand severe heat exposure, and the usual scope of the structural consultant in a building project is to design the structure for the expected climate temperature range. The prevailing mindset in the design community is that the structural engineer designs the structure and the architect (or sometimes, the fire engineer) specifies the fire protection to comply with building code requirements for prescriptive, fire-resistance rated construction.

The above disposition appeared to be satisfactory. For many decades, multi-storey steel-framed buildings enjoyed an excellent fire performance record in North America and all around the world as they were never reported to have collapsed due to fire. There have been numerous incidents of steel framed buildings surviving severe uncontrolled long-duration fires with the complete burnout of contents on several floors.1 Large-scale fire tests, conducted in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., also clearly demonstrated that steel framed buildings can survive natural fires, even when some structural steel elements are left without any sprayed fire proofing.2

• building: highrise