This groundbreaking book contains a broad yet detailed coverage of the major aspects of fire engineering. As would be expected, such matters as fire extinguishers, flame-retardants and fire-fighting feature centrally, with descriptions, from the functional point of view, of fire appliances from selected manufacturers around the world. There is coverage of selected accidental fires, both recent ones and those which have been on record for many years as being amongst the most serious in terms of loss of life. Social and political aspects of fire engineering also feature in the book, for example in accounts of fires in countries where buildings are sub-standard in safety terms and fire services are unreliable. Fire safety products are an integral part of the subject and improvements in fire safety have to a considerable degree been due to development work by manufacturers and trade names therefore feature in the book where applicable. Scientific and engineering details of the products have been obtained and re-expressed in broad terms. The author has paid close attention to the underlying physics and chemistry and some of the topics are complemented by calculations.