The University of Adelaide Library

Built Environments I (DESST 1006)

e-Research topic 24

Fire prevention design

Should fire prevention design be "a part of all suburban housing, not just for houses in bush locations"? This is the argument of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in response to the devastation in suburban Canberra over Summer 2002-2003, and the statement by NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg that "Sydney faces its biggest bushfire emergency for 20-30 years". For houses in bush locations "Should we be building, or rebuilding, in areas that are known to ignite with the first lightning strike or at the flick of a match?" Discuss.

REFERENCES

These references are starting points, a few references to show that there is material available on your topic from a variety of sources.
YOU need to -

apply basic literature searching techniques to find books, articles, reports, case studies, statistics, etc,

evaluate the content of the references in the context of your topic

fully ascribe references to their source, using the Author-Date (Harvard) style

Check with your lecturer or tutor if you have queries about the content of references.
Check with your librarian if you need assistance finding more material.

Pryor, Cathy. "Living with a time bomb", Australian, 9th December 2002, page 10.

"VIC: Architects warn of fire risk houses in the bush", AAP General News (Australia), 4th February 1999.

"Fed: Bushfire chief warns against bush development", AAP General News (Australia), 9th December 2002.

Books
AMCORD: a national resource document for residential development. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, c1995.
Reference collection, Reserve and Main Collection 711.58 A938an

Bushfire prone areas: siting and design of residential buildings. 2nd ed. Brisbane, Queensland Department of Local Government and Planning, incorporating Rural Communities ; Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority, Rural Fire Division, 1997.
Main Collection 693.82 Q31Lb

Good residential design SA: a resource for planning, designing and developing neighbourhoods and homes. Planning SA, 1999.
Reference Collection 711.58099423 P712g

Luke, R. H. Bushfires in Australia. Reprinted with corrections, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1986.

Maxwell, F.T.T. Housing design for bushfire areas. Thesis (B. Arch)--University of Adelaide, Department of Architecture, 1984.
Main Collection 09ARCH M465

Webster, Joan. Complete Australian bushfire book. Melbourne, Nelson, 1986.
Main Collection 363.3492 W381c

Articles
"Anatomy of a summer killer", Sunday Mail, 8th December 2002, page 79.

"BUSHFIRE DISASTER", Advertiser, 21st January 2003, page 17.
A number of letters commmenting on issues relating to the bushfires.

Benson, Simon. "Advancing embers led blitzkrieg from above - Canberra burns under attack", Daily Telegraph, 22nd January 2003, page 4.

Hallam, Louise . "Ecohouse a winner. A quick-to-construct cyclone and bushfire-resistant building system is attracting plenty of attention", Townsville Bulletin, 23rd January 2003, page 23.

"Living with the natural enemy", Australian, 5th January 2002, page 17.

Merola, Anna. "Are we next in path of inferno?", Sunday Mail, 26th January 2003, page 48.

"Protecting your home from bushfire", Built environment innovation & construction technology, no. 23, February 2002.

"Building in bushfire prone areas", Built environment innovation & construction technology, no. 11, February 2000.

Web sites
Architecture.com.au the RAIA web site.

Bush fire protection issues.
From the web site of Emilis Prelgauskas - SA architect, with an emphasis on environmentally sustainable design.

Country Fire Service Authority (Vic.) FireWire website includes Community Fireguard programme, and Publications, among them Living in the bush.

NSW Rural Fire Service
Among the publications available is a Bush Fire Checklist, and information on Legislative Change and Planning for Bushfire Protection as well as media releases on the recent bushfires.

Selector.com
From the RAIA, a guide to online information on products for the building industry.

ENCYCLOPAEDIAS and HANDBOOKS are useful sources for background information.

Encyclopedia of architecture, design, engineering & construction. Wiley, New York, 1990.
Reference collection 720.3 W682e
"Fire resistance of materials", vol.2, pages 431-440. "Fire protection", vol.2, pages 360-361.

Ching, F. D. K. Visual dictionary of architecture. Wiley, New York, 1997.
Reference collection 720.3 C539v
Instead of an alphabetical listing, the information is clustered around basic aspects of architecture with words placed in their visual context. Included are fundamental terms relating to architectural design, history and technology. "Design", pages 52-59. "Fire safety", pages 88-91. "Materials", pages 161-165.

The following handbooks present guidelines for architectural design over a range of activities, building types, and environments. These follow European or North American precedents, remember to check with Australian codes including -
Australian Standard 3959-1999, "Construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas",
The Building Code of Australia includes requirements for fire prevention design in section SAG5.101.

Architect's data. (Neufert) 3rd ed. Oxford, Blackwell Science Publishers, 2000.
Reference collection 721.0212 N482a.3
"Fire protection and means of escape" pages 125-137.

Metric handbook: planning and design data. 2nd ed. Oxford, Architectural Press, 1999.
Reference collection 721.0212 N532.2
Section 42, "Fire".

Time-saver standards for architectural design data; the reference of architectural fundamentals. 7th ed. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Reference collection 721.0212 C157t.7
Section D4, "Fire protection".

Finding MORE INFORMATION on the topic

Use the Library Catalogue to find books and reports.

For an initial search select Basic Search, then from Search by: select Keywords (using and, or, not). Using the Boolean operators will allow you to make your search effective. In the Search for: bar type words to describe your topic, then click on Search. With the AND operator between your search terms, the Catalogue will find records which include each search word. For example:

bushfire AND houses finds 1 record which include each of these words somewhere in the record.

When there are alternative words for a concept, enclose the words within round brackets ( ) and type OR between each word. Where you want both singular and plural forms of a word, truncate the word and add a question mark ? to the stem. For example:

bushfire? AND (hous? OR home? OR building?)

The resulting search report shows your search strategy and the number of titles which match that search strategy, followed by a numbered list of the titles arranged according to a relevance formula. If you want to see the most recent books first, go to Sort by at the bottom of the titles, and pull down to Date (latest first).
Where a title looks useful, click on the record number, in square brackets [ ] to the left of the title, to look at the full details. Note any other words you could use in your search.

Use the previous and next icons to move backwards or forwards through the list of titles.
Note the range of social and technical topics covered in the titles retrieved. For each title that looks relevant, click on the small check box to the left of the title to create a temporary file of these records, which you can email, print or transfer to disk. Remember to click on Retain Selected before moving to the next page of results. Go to the bottom of the list of titles or individual record for the Save Options box and select Print/Save or E-mail or Save To Bookbag as required.

Where there is a relevant Subject Heading, click on this to get a list of 50 subject headings. Choose a Subject Heading of interest to find records for other books with that Subject Heading. For example:

Architecture, Domestic
Building, Fireproof
Dwellings--Fire and fire protection
Forest fires
Wildfires

Another way to use Subject Headings is through the Guided keyword search.
From Search by: select Subject, and in the search bar(s) type words that you know from useful subject headings. For example:

building? fire? [leave the default at] all of these
AND
prevention control [leave the default at] all of these
This search finds 1 record which include these two pairs of words in a subject heading or its subheadings.

Alternatively, if you are interested in prevention or control aspects of fire and building, change the default, for example:

building? fire? [leave the default at] all of these
AND
prevention control [change the default to] any of these where either of the words must appear in a Subject Heading. This is a broader search and finds 21 records.

Go to What does the Library have on my topic? for ways of improving your search results

Use INDEXES and DATABASES to find what articles or papers have been written on your topic

These databases use Boolean operators, in most cases it is safe to use the words AND or OR (with brackets) but there may be other codes used for truncation, such as an asterisk *. Search notes are provided for each database but if you don't get the results you expect, please check with the Architecture Librarian, Kay Leverett.

The databases listed below cover information on aspects of energy and architecture, indoor climate and building materials.

For Australian material use -
ARCH - indexes Australian architectural and design journals.   click here for search notes
APA-FT - indexes a range of Australian journals in the social sciences, full text of articles provided from 1995 for some 200 journals.   For search notes see ARCH
Australia/New Zealand reference centre- indexes articles and newspapers from Australia and New Zealand.      click here for search notes
BUILD - from the CSIRO, indexes journals, books and research reports on building and construction in Australia.   For search notes see ARCH
ElectricLibrary - includes full text of major Australian newspapers, some general encyclopedias and journals.     click here for search notes
ENGINE - from the Institution of Engineers, Australia, indexes articles and papers published by the Institution. For search notes see ARCH

International sources may give you other ideas, such as -
EAI: Expanded Academic Index - covers a wide range of journals. Provides full text for many of the articles. click here for search notes
Avery Index - an international index for architectural and design journals. click here for search notes
GEOBASE - an international index of articles, books and research reports on urban geography. For search techniques see ARCH
LexisNexis - a huge international database; includes full text Australian newspapers. click here for search notes

This is only a small selection of possible databases, if you don't find what you need here, please come and see me, Kay Leverett, Architecture Librarian, or contact me by phone (8303 4659) or email: kay.leverett@adelaide.edu.au