The Fire Incidents Records Exchange (FIRE) Project started in 2002 and phase 7 of the project began in 2023 for a duration of three years, with 14 countries currently participating. The main purpose of the project is to collect and analyse, on an international scale, data related to fire events in nuclear environments. The specific objectives are to:

• collect fire event experience (through international exchange) in a quality-assured and consistent database, and to define its format;
• collect and analyse fire events data over the long term to better understand such events, their causes and their prevention;
• generate qualitative insights into the root causes of fire events that can then be used to derive approaches or mechanisms for their prevention or for the mitigation of their consequences;
• establish a mechanism for the efficient feedback of experience gained in connection with fire events, including the development of defences against their occurrence, such as indicators for risk-based inspections;
• record event attributes to enable the quantification of fire frequencies and risk analysis.

The structure of the database has been well defined and arrangements have been made in all countries to collect and validate data. The quality assurance process is frequently refined and has proven to be efficient in assessing the quality of the data provided by partners. A special emphasis is put on the usability of the database for probabilistic safety analyses. The participating countries are continuously updating the structure and functions of the database in order to increase its usability and applicability and to take operating experience into account. Coding guidelines and a quality assurance manual have been developed and validated by the project's participants. The FIRE database is now widely seen as the reference international database for fire events.

For the last version of the database (version 2021:01), which covers data up to the end of 2021, significant efforts were made to further enhance the quality and completeness of the data. At the end of 2023, the database contains 602 fire events and covers approximately 10 435 reactor operation years. The release of the last versions of the database is expected in early 2024.

Further discussions are ongoing about an extension of the FIRE database to fires in research reactors and other fuel cycle facilities, as well as fires during decommissioning. The collection of data for such events has started.

A number of topical reports have been issued by the Project and a number are under discussion.

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