"Fire protection engineers are in high demand and short supply," said Chris Jelenewicz a fire protection engineer with the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). In a recent survey by SFPE of the largest employers of fire protection engineers, a majority currently have difficulty recruiting enough qualified engineers. "Those surveyed believe this imbalance in demand will continue at least five years into the future," Jelenewicz said.

Fire protection engineers perform a wide range of roles that make the world safer from fire, including:

• Evaluate buildings to pinpoint the risks of fires and the means to prevent them.
• Review building design documents for fire departments, fire marshal offices and/or code enforcement agencies to assure compliance with the applicable building and fire regulations.
• Design building systems that: detect fires, control the spread of fires, control the movement of smoke, alert people to danger and provide a safe means for building occupants to exit a building.
• Conduct fire safety research on consumer products and construction materials.
• Investigate fires to discover how they spread, why protective measures failed, and how those measures could have been designed more effectively.