Louis Chaumont: Director
Louis is a Chartered Engineer via the Institution of Fire Engineers with over eight years experience in the industry.
What do you aim to achieve with Mars Fire Engineering?
My goal is for Mars Fire Engineering to become a trusted partner that clients can rely on for tailored support and technical expertise to ensure safe, innovative and successful projects.
What is your favourite project to date?
It has to be the Timber Square scheme for Landsec, which I worked on in my previous role. Developing a fire strategy for what will be the largest hybrid steel and cross-laminated timber building in the world when completed is not an easy task. This required extensive research, technical innovation and even large scale fire testing. The final result will, in my view, look incredible. This scheme truly is a showcase of fire engineering enabling the transition to Net Zero Carbon.
What do you see as the biggest challenge for the fire engineering industry at the moment?
Balancing innovation with increasingly prescriptive regulatory requirements is a major challenge. There are ambitious goals the industry will need to meet in terms of Net Zero Carbon in the near future, but that transition requires extensive fire safety research and innovation—something that can be difficult when the industry and approving bodies may be risk-averse or slow to adapt.
What do you love doing when you are not at work?
I used to do a lot of road cycling and long distance trail running until I became a father about a year ago. So my free time these days is more about running after a crawling baby and ensuring she doesn't eat the cat's food... but, ultimately, I will be aiming for the perfect balance of staying active and family time.