News media report that two people have died and dozens were injured in a fire in the Eurostars David Hotel in Prague.

At around 04:00 this morning, 10th January, a fire was reported in an underground car park in Choisy-le-Roi, south of Paris. 120 firefighters attended. One firefighter suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital.

Shortly before Christmas, Dame Judith Hackitt published an interim report of her review of building regulations and fire safety.

As part of the recently announced US federal tax reform, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, small businesses will be able to expense the retrofit of fire sprinklers

German media report that a fire in Saarbrücken has killed four people and injured 23, while a fire in Berlin has injured 22 people.

There have been several major fires recently in some of Europe's capital cities. In each fire the burning building was not fitted with sprinklers.

On 9 November Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour Party leader, gave a press conference at which he called for sprinklers to be fitted in all existing social housing buildings higher than 30 m.

From January Finland will permit 3-8 storey hotels to be built from wood if they are fitted with sprinklers. Larger compartments

Fire Sprinkler International 2018 will take place in Stockholm on 13-14 June. As for our previous conferences, we are issuing a call for papers. Please download it here: Call for Papers 2018

Far from dampening activity, since sprinklers became mandatory in Wales housebuilding has increased.