Civil PE - Fire Protection PE

[khp]

I'm planning on taking the Civil PE in April. I'm thinking about going back to school for Fire Protection, as I work with a lot of building codes, egress issues and fire rated construction etc. It is my understanding that in order to work on federal fire protection jobs you need to also take the Fire Protection PE.

Can you just re-submit to the State and take this exam? Once you get your experience years completed and signed off, it doesn't matter what PE exam you take, right? I would obviously not take the exam until I felt comfortable passing and stamping drawings in that field.

I don't think there was anything on my State application where I marked that I would be taking the Civil PE exam. I only selected Civil PE on the Castle registration form, there was nothing preventing me from marking any exam I wanted.

Any input on people who have experience working in multiple engineering fields would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[sac_engineer]

I'm planning on taking the Civil PE in April. I'm thinking about going back to school for Fire Protection, as I work with a lot of building codes, egress issues and fire rated construction etc. It is my understanding that in order to work on federal fire protection jobs you need to also take the Fire Protection PE.
Can you just re-submit to the State and take this exam? Once you get your experience years completed and signed off, it doesn't matter what PE exam you take, right? I would obviously not take the exam until I felt comfortable passing and stamping drawings in that field.

I don't think there was anything on my State application where I marked that I would be taking the Civil PE exam. I only selected Civil PE on the Castle registration form, there was nothing preventing me from marking any exam I wanted.

Any input on people who have experience working in multiple engineering fields would be appreciated. Thanks

For the California PE exam application, you have to state the branch of engineering for which you are seeking licensure. Also, the branch must be stated on the reference forms. I can't imagine other states would not require the applicant to specify their discipline in advance of the exam. Otherwise, how would they know for which type of engineering you will be registered and verify the appropriate references in that particular type of engineering?

Once you gain experience in fire protection and you want to be a FP PE, you have to take the FP PE exam regardless of having a Civil PE. It does matter which PE exam you take depending on the title you wish to have later on. A Civil PE can't call themselves a Fire Protection PE (and vice versa) unless you are properly registered as one by the state and passed the FP PE exam.

The one nice thing about the process is that you don't need to have a Civil PE to be a FP PE. The only time you need a civil PE as a pre-requisite for another title, is for the authority titles such as geotechnical and structural.

Good luck!