Professor Galea leads the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) team at the University of Greenwich.

He is pictured studying the consequences of a fire on a hypothetical super jumbo-jet aircraft and the subsequent evacuation from an airport building.

Galea's work at Greenwich is facilitated by Exodus and Smartfire, software packages developed by FSEG. The Exodus building evacuation model is used in 17 countries by fire services, regulatory authorities, design engineers and universities. Similarly, its Smartfire fire field model is used in seven countries.

The primary application of fire-field modelling technology concerns the prediction of smoke and heat movement in enclosures, work which has been supported by various groups, including the UK's Home Office, Ove Arup and Partners, the European Union, the Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

In high-rise buildings, a common method of fire propagation to higher floors is via the outside of the building. The blaze leaves the incident floor through a window and spreads to higher floors as the flames and thermal plume rise through the effects of buoyancy, a phenomenon that has been responsible for a number of devastating fires over the years.

By using fire-field modelling techniques, the trajectory and temperature distribution of hot gases ejected from the fire compartments in high-rise buildings can be determined, leading to a better understanding of the nature of external fire propagation and its impact on safety.

FSEG is one of Europe's leading centres of excellence concerned with the mathematical modelling of fire and related phenomena. With 22 group members it is also one of the largest university-based groups dedicated to such modelling in the world. Since 1990, FSEG has generated more than three million pounds sterling of research and consultancy funding.

Consultancy projects undertaken by FSEG have included crowd safety and control analysis for racecourses; analysis of ventilation and smoke-movement characteristics for underground railway stations; evacuation and analysis for aircraft manufacturers and pollution spread analysis.

Other projects involve advice to fire brigades on evacuation performance from large structures, fire-safety analysis of the international space station for the European Space Agency and expert witness advice for legal hearings.

FSEG expertise is sought by standards bodies such as the British Standards Institute (BSI) and the International Standards Organisation (ISO). Professor Galea serves on several BSI committees concerned with fire and life safety.

In 1997, he was the nominated UK expert on life safety for the international standards organisation committee concerned with fire safety (ISO TC92) and in 1999 became a member of the Human Behaviour Task Group of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (US).

Contact Professor Galea, Fire Safety Engineering Group, University of Greenwich, London, UK, tel: (0944) 20 8331 8730, e.r.galea@gre.ac.uk or fseg.gre.ac.uk