FPE at Maryland

About

The Department of Fire Protection Engineering (FPE) was established at UMD in 1956. 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 government, industry and academic positions around the world. FPE's mission is to reduce fire losses of life and property by providing the highest quality of scientifically based education, research and outreach 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
6 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: 79 (Fall 2023)
Percentage of female students: 37% (Fall 2023)
Minority population: 15% (Fall 2023)
Degrees awarded: 48 (2022)

Enrollment: 39 in M.S. and M.Eng. (Fall 2023)
Percentage of female students: 36% in M.S. and M.Eng. (Fall 2023)
Percentage of underrepresented minorities: 5% in M.S. and M.Eng. (Fall 2023)
Degrees awarded: 15 in M.S. and M.Eng. (2022)

Clark School Facts & Figures

Meet the Chair

On July 30, 2023, Arnaud Trouvé, became chair of the University of Maryland (UMD) Department of Fire Protection Engineering (FPE).

Trouvé joined the FPE faculty in 2001. Since then, his commitment to teaching and research excellence, energy for expanding the department, and focus on student success has played a major role in growing the strong, international reputation of the department.

Dr. Trouvé is an internationally recognized expert in fire dynamics. Over the years, he has served on the editorial boards of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion and Flame, and Fire Technology; he currently serves on the editorial boards of Combustion Theory and Modelling and the Fire Safety Journal. Trouvé has organized several regional, national, and international meetings at UMD, including the Fall Technical Meeting of the U.S. Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute (ESSCI) in 2009, the 10th Symposium of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) in 2011, and the 10th U.S. National Combustion Meeting in 2017. He is also a past chair of the ESSCI and a past executive board member of the IAFSS. As further demonstration of his dedication to advancing the fire research community, Trouvé co-leads the IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (the MaCFP Working Group) and chairs a network of leading higher education institutions and research laboratories in fire safety engineering called the International Fire Safety Consortium.

Trouvé earned his Engineering Degree and M.S. from the École Centrale of Paris, France, in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1989. His research interests include fire modeling and Computational Fluid Dynamics, application of data assimilation to fire and combustion, and the physical modeling of combustion- and fire-related phenomena, including compartment fires, wildland fires and explosions. Trouvé is a fellow of the Combustion Institute and the recipient of the 2017 FORUM Sjölin Award, which recognizes "an outstanding contribution to the science of fire safety, or an advance in the state of the art in fire safety engineering."