Services for Engineers

George is a fire protection engineer. He has a bachelor's degree and is a professionally certified engineer. He now works in the research department of an insurance company, testing claims for fire damage to make sure they are genuine.

George begins his day in his office. He reads over some reports on new insurance claims that have been sent to his department. These are cases which appeared suspicious to the insurance company and which have been referred to George in order to confirm or disprove these suspicions.

After making some notes on the new cases, George turns to one he is already working on. He has been running a computer model to determine whether a fire in a garage that damaged a number of expensive vehicles was accidental or not. The firefighters thought that it had spread faster than they would expect, but found no proof of arson. George analyzes the results of the computer model. He finds that although the fire spread quickly it was probably due to the flammable insulation that had been used in the garage, which was an old building. It appears the fire was accidental. He sends his findings to the person who is in charge of the case, recommending that they make the payment.

During the afternoon, George works on another case. A large fire destroyed a warehouse, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. Since this is a major case, George is running some practical experiments as well as using computer models. He heads to the large experimental building, where he sets fire, under controlled conditions, to some of the items that were listed as being in the warehouse. He takes measurements of how fast and hot they burn, which he will add into his model in order to improve its accuracy. The preliminary results show that the fire was started on purpose, but he needs to be sure before he makes an accusation.