About

Fire Protection Association Australia
(FPA Australia) is Australia's peak industry body for fire safety.  

We provide information, services, and education to the fire protection sector and the broader community. 

Our members represent every aspect of fire safety – the manufacturers, suppliers, installers, and servicers of fire protection products and services, as well as firefighters, building owners, insurers, designers and surveyors, government representatives, educators, and anyone else with an interest in fire safety.  

FPA Australia is a not-for-profit association and charity governed by a Board of Directors and run by a permanent staff in its Melbourne-based National Office.  

Our vision is for a safer community where the loss of life, injury, and damage to property and the environment are minimised through effective fire protection.  

National Fire Protection Month returns this September. 

The Month recognises and celebrates the role of fire protection and its importance in ensuring the safety of the community.  

This September is the 357th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, which swept through the city in the first week of September, 1666. 

The fire broke out in a bakery on Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September, and spread rapidly. 

Over the next five days, it ravaged large parts of the northern bank of the River Thames, including: 

• St Paul's Cathedral and 87 parish churches; 
• the Royal Exchange and the Custom House; 
• 44 company halls (trade halls, guild halls, and the like); 
• the Bridewell Palace and other city prisons;
• the General Letter Office; 
• the three western city gates - Ludgate, Newgate, and Aldersgate; and 
• around 13,500 houses (15% of the city’s housing).  

By the time it was extinguished, it had destroyed large parts of the northern bank of the city, causing £10,000,000 damage (£1.72 billion in today’s terms), and displacing 200,000 people.

As well as causing physical changes to London, the Great Fire had significant demographic, social, political, economic, and cultural impacts.  

It also led to strict new fire regulations and building codes imposed in London in 1667 to reduce the risk of future fires, prevent their spread, and make them easier to extinguish, and led to the emergence of some of the first insurance companies.

From this seminal event has come much of what we recognise today as fire protection, from building regulations and passive fire protection to organised fire brigades and even insurance.

This September, National Fire Protection Month will highlight the importance of our industry to the ongoing safety of the community, the support it provides to firefighters, and the protection of life, property, and the environment.

FPA Australia’s Patron is His Excellency General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), Governor-General of Australia.

General Hurley commenced as Australia's 27th Governor-General on 1 July, 2019.  Prior to this, General Hurley served a five-year term as the 38th Governor of New South Wales. 

The Governor-General's career has mostly been spent as an officer in the Australian Army, where his 42-year tenure culminated in his appointment as the Chief of the Defence Force, but he previously served in support roles in Somalia, East Timor, and operations. 

In 1993, he received a Distinguished Service Cross for his service in Somalia; in 2004 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia; and, in 2010, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for eminent service to the Australian Defence Force.  

Our Ambassador is Professor Fiona Wood AM.

Professor Wood is an internationally acclaimed burns researcher and surgeon, known for achievements such as the development of 'spray on skin' and leadership of a Perth-based team which treated 28 survivors of the Bali bombings in 2002. 

She leads the Fiona Wood Foundation, FPA Australia's official Charity Partner, and is the Director of the Burns Service of Western Australia and a Consultant Plastic Surgeon at Fiona Stanley Hospital and Perth Children's Hospital. 

Professor Wood was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2003. In 2005 she won the Western Australian Citizen of the Year award for her contribution to medicine in the field of burns research, and in the same year was also named Australian of the Year.  

She was named an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust and was voted the most-trusted Australian in a Reader's Digest poll for six successive years from 2005 to 2010.  

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