Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

This paper presents a prospect of f ire science: It is pointed out that fire science necessarily consists of various areas, and examples of classification of subjects in fire science are shown. It is emphasized that knowledge in each area is indispensable to prevent fire losses . To clarify the trend of current fire research, recent activities of researchers in the areas of fire science are investigated. Most subjects in current fire research are indicated to depend on recent accidental fires although many of them are basic and not directly dealing with any particular accidental fire. Finally, the efforts to be needed for future fire research are considered . Because it is practically impossible to imagine accidental fires in the future which should be closely related to the inconceivable matters such as the development of technology and variation of our life style, a trend of future fire research is attempted to infer based on that of current fire research. Most subjects to be studied in future fire research are suggested to be of basic knowledge although those will be more or less related to the fires in the future . Also, it is inferred that data and methods in future fire research will change to a greater extent if a novel concept will be introduced.