Shan Raffel has served as a career firefighter in Brisbane, Australia, since 1983. His career took a serious change in 1994 after two of his colleagues were killed while fighting a relatively routine fire in a small motorcycle dealership. In 1996, two other colleagues were seriously injured after being caught in an extreme fire event while conducting search and rescue operations in a section of a Backpackers Hostel that was smoke laden. These events motivated him to present an extensive report that led to an international study of compartment fire behaviour training (CFBT) in 1997. He studied at the leading training institutions in Sweden and the UK which led to the development of the first nationally recognised training CFBT program in Australia in 1998. Subsequently he has assisted numerous fire services in the world in the development of their training facilities, instructors and teaching materials.
In 2009 he was awarded a “Churchill Fellowship” to research “Planning Preparation and Response to Emergencies in Tunnels” which led to intensive study over a period of 10 weeks in the USA (FDNY), Canada, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland. He used this knowledge to develop the construction and operational phase emergency response plans for the 3 largest road tunnels in Australia.
His international training experience spans 26 countries, and his International Compartment Fire Behaviour Instructors program gained international credentialing through the Institution of Fire Engineers recognition process in 2018.
Project
To study emergency planning, preparation and response to fires and other incidents in large tunnels
Shan Raffel
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