# Fire Protection PE Exam Reference Materials



## rhino7628 (Apr 18, 2008)

What do you all suggest? I am trying to find a break even point. For example, I don't want to miss a question because I don't have the available reference, but at the same time, I don't want to have so many references available, that I end up spending so much valuable time looking through them, resulting in other missed questions. This is all I have so far:

SFPE fire protection handbook

SFPE Pe exam reference manual and answer book

One thing I notice is that these SFPE books have lots of errors.

My work has all of the available NFPA codes that I could borrow (although some of them not the most recent versions, I suppose I could print the electronics and bind them if needed). I am considering purchasing a copy of the NFPA fire protection handbook as well.


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## Capt Worley PE (Apr 18, 2008)

The scaricity of good materials to study is the main reason I went mechanical instead of Fire Protection. A PE is a PE in my state, although I've heard (never confirmed) that you have to have a Fire Protection PE to work on federal projects.


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## rhino7628 (Apr 18, 2008)

Capt Worley PE said:


> The scaricity of good materials to study is the main reason I went mechanical instead of Fire Protection. A PE is a PE in my state, although I've heard (never confirmed) that you have to have a Fire Protection PE to work on federal projects.



I already have my mechanical PE as well. I notice that yes, you could do fire protection work as a mechanical PE, but you will have a hard time landing a "Fire Protection Engineer" position without the fire protection PE. Either way, my boss already agreed to increasing my pay grade if I get the fire protection PE (hence my motivation).

Anyways, if anybody out there has good ideas for reference materials, let me know.


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## ME_FPE (Apr 18, 2008)

Rhino,

It's impressive that you're pursuing an additional PE.

My original intent was to take the FPE PE Exam, but I ran into some mix ups with the application for the October 2007 exam and I switched jobs since then. The job switch and a desire to obtain a PE ASAP lead me to sit for the Mechanical PE Exam in April 2008. I did a bit of studying for the FPE PE Exam and QUITE a bit of studying for the ME PE Exam. I'm glad I chose to actually sit for the ME PE (even if I didn't pass)--the breadth of information I learned and relearned in studying and sitting for that exam really solidified my knowledge and skills as an engineer.

I took an SFPE class on how to study for the FPE PE and studied a little bit for it, and here are my additional book recommendations:


Principles of Smoke Management by Klote and Milke
NFPA Fire Protection Handbook, 19th Ed. 
Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Karlsson &amp; Quintiere
An Introduction to Fire Dynamics, Drysdale
Additional NFPA standards beyond those that are required

Everything you need to pass the exam would be in the SFPE Handbook of FPE and the required NFPA Codes. During the exam, I think it would be difficult to find everything you need in the SFPE HB however.

In working some practice problems for this exam I noticed the following: A good portion of this test appeared to be NFPA code look up questions or NFPA Code application questions. To a lesser extent, there were some two to three step calculation questions.

I think the most important part of passing the FPE PE exam would be to be very familiar with how to quickly find information in the NFPA codes. This is merely an unsubstantiated opinion as I never actually sat for the FPE PE exam.



rhino7628 said:


> I already have my mechanical PE as well. I notice that yes, you could do fire protection work as a mechanical PE, but you will have a hard time landing a "Fire Protection Engineer" position without the fire protection PE. Either way, my boss already agreed to increasing my pay grade if I get the fire protection PE (hence my motivation).
> Anyways, if anybody out there has good ideas for reference materials, let me know.


Hi Rhino


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## ME_FPE (Apr 18, 2008)

Rhino,

I'm curious that your boss would increase your pay grade if you passed the FPE PE, as you already have your PE. Are you licensed in a state that licenses engineers by discipline or is it a liability consideration for your company?


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## rhino7628 (Apr 18, 2008)

ME_FPE said:


> Rhino,
> I'm curious that your boss would increase your pay grade if you passed the FPE PE, as you already have your PE. Are you licensed in a state that licenses engineers by discipline or is it a liability consideration for your company?



I think it is a combination of the rarity of a fire protection PE in my area and the fact that we are dominated by government contracts that require a fire protection PE.


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## rhino7628 (May 11, 2008)

rhino7628 said:


> I think it is a combination of the rarity of a fire protection PE in my area and the fact that we are dominated by government contracts that require a fire protection PE.


One thing I notice during my studying so far is that the SFPE handbook is very useful, but mostly metric. The NFPA fire protection handbook is useful because it has a lot of the tables and equations from the SFPE handbook, but in english units. But the info is not as usefull as the SFPE. I'm guessing the test is mostly english units.


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## ME_FPE (May 15, 2008)

rhino7628 said:


> One thing I notice during my studying so far is that the SFPE handbook is very useful, but mostly metric. The NFPA fire protection handbook is useful because it has a lot of the tables and equations from the SFPE handbook, but in english units. But the info is not as usefull as the SFPE. I'm guessing the test is mostly english units.


My guess would be that certain things, like sprinkler piping flow rate and friction loss would be in english units, while other things would have units that are specific to fire protection engineering, which are sometimes metric--e.g., heat release rate in kW, t squared growth coefficient in kW/s^2


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## Capt Worley PE (May 15, 2008)

Keep in mind that the SFPE review manual has a LOT of mistakes in it. They really need to publish an errata for it.


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