FPE at Maryland

About

In 1956, the Department of Fire Protection Engineering (FPE) was established within the Clark School of Engineering. To date, we offer the only fully ABET accredited undergraduate program and one of three graduate degree programs in the U.S. More than 2,000 FPE graduates have been employed in corporations, engineering companies, insurance companies, government positions, and the fire service. FPE's mission is to reduce the burden of fire losses on life and property by providing the highest quality of scientifically based education, research and outreach in FPE, and in fire-related safety, health and environmental issues.

Explore our Research Programs Meet our Students

Ashlynne Orcurto offers insight into the FPE programs and environment.

Founded in 1956
More than $3 million in annual research expenditures
7 Full-time Faculty Members
Core research areas: Fire/smoke behavior, materials flammability, wildfires, fire in microgravity, fire detection and suppression, evacuation analyses
Center affiliates include FireTEC, Center for Disaster Resilience, U21 International Fire Safety Consortium and MD Fire & Rescue Institute (MFRI)

Enrollment: 116 (Fall 2021)
Percentage of female students: 30% (Fall 2021)
Minority population: 16% (Fall 2021)
Degrees awarded: 26 (2021)

Enrollment: 19 M.S. (Fall 2021)
Percentage of female students: 16% (Fall 2021)
Internationals: 16% (Fall 2021)
Degrees awarded: 12 (M.S.), 18 (M.Eng.) (2021)

Clark School Facts & Figures

Meet the Chair

James Milke

A member of the faculty and staff since 1977, Dr. Milke is Professor and Chair of the Department. His principal areas of expertise involve smoke management, fire detection and analyzing the response of materials exposed to fire conditions. Milke is also Director of the distance option for the Master of Engineering Program.

In 1991, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland (UMD) in Aerospace Engineering. He received a Master of Science degree from UMD in Mechanical Engineering, and is a 1976 graduate of the UMD Fire Protection Engineering program. Dr. Milke also has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Ursinus College.

Dr. Milke has served as a Research Fire Prevention Engineer at the Center for Fire Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), as the Fire Protection Engineer for Fairfax County, Virginia, as a Research Assistant for the University of Maryland and as a consultant to several organizations.

Dr. Milke is a Fellow and a past president of the SFPE. He is a member of the National Fire Protection Association and the International Association for Fire Safety Science. He is a member of the Fire Council of Underwriters Laboratories and the NFPA Technical Committee on Smoke Management Systems. He is a past member of NFPA Standards Council. He is the past-chair of the NFPA Technical Committee on Smoke Management Systems and the ASCE/SFPE committee, "Structural Design for Fire Conditions." He was a member of the Core Group of the FEMA Building Performance Assessment Team for the World Trade Center incident on September 11, 2001.