This article is based on the presentation delivered by Dirk Streicher, founder of Ignis Fire Testing, at the 12th Annual Fire Systems Design and Engineering Conference. He offered a candid, technically grounded account of how South Africa’s most advanced independent fire-testing facility emerged and the lessons he has learned along the way.
Part 1 focuses on the origins and development of Ignis Fire Testing, tracing the journey from improvised furnace experiments to collaboration with Stellenbosch University and the eventual establishment of advanced local fire testing capabilities. Subsequent articles in the series will explore the technical, operational, and engineering lessons involved in developing and operating a modern fire testing laboratory in South Africa.
The accidental beginning of Ignis Fire Testing
The origin story of Ignis Fire Testing does not offer a formula for commercial success. There was no business plan involved. Instead, Ignis developed almost unintentionally from witnessing a critical need for fire testing, a willingness to solve difficult problems, and pure curiosity.
Streicher warns that anyone who wants to penetrate the fire testing industry solely to make money should reconsider their decision. Fire laboratories are expensive, consuming capital, time, resources, and energy at a rate few industries can match. Yet, they remain essential.
The laboratory developed as a passion project after recognising South Africa’s need for stronger local fire-testing capability. Streicher views Ignis as a contribution back to engineering and research, built on the experience, technical knowledge, and resources accumulated throughout his career.
Engineering foundations and early curiosity
Streicher describes himself first and foremost as a civil engineer – “because it keeps one civil,” he jokes – but his career path has extended far beyond traditional engineering practice.
After completing a master’s degree in hydraulics, his early career included security risk assessments and design work during national service, followed by a decade in road construction as a resident engineer and in arbitration. Over the years, his work expanded into specialised joinery manufacturing, property development, and eventually the manufacturing of fire doors for Alandel between 2013 and 2015.
Exposure to the fire door industry “ignited” his curiosity about this field of engineering, but also raised important questions about the actual performance and quality of many fire doors on the market.
Streicher acknowledges Johan Swart, his long-standing technical partner who worked with him through the joinery factory and property development ventures, as critical to the evolution of Ignis Fire Testing. According to Streicher, Swart “never leaves a challenge untouched”.
Spurred by curiosity, Streicher and Swart constructed a small furnace capable of testing only half a fire door at a time.
The first full-sized furnace
The initial objective was simple: develop a better fire door core and potentially license or sell it.
What followed was a year of experimentation in 2015, during which Streicher and Swart conducted nearly 100 tests using different core combinations and material selections. They purchased classified fire doors of various ratings, cut them in half, and subjected them to testing in their tiny, self-built furnace. The project ultimately ended without them selling their concept.
In 2017, a joinery manufacturer approached Streicher for assistance with the production of fire doors. Before committing to the project, there was only one logical step: build a furnace capable of properly testing the doors.
The outcome was unexpected. The fire door manufacturing venture never materialised, but the furnace remained. Initially equipped with a single double-stage gas burner, it was later upgraded to modulating diesel burners sponsored by a generous client. During this period, numerous tests were conducted at no cost in order to build practical knowledge and experience in furnace testing.
This became the foundation from which Ignis Fire Testing would eventually develop.
Learning by building
Streicher admits they started out fire testing with limited knowledge beyond practical manufacturing, especially door manufacturing. But moving from making products to testing them under fire required precise measurement and control equipment. Acquiring and implementing this instrumentation marked a pivotal leap, laying the groundwork for the laboratory as it exists today.
To solve this challenge, a contact at Cape Instruments recommended that Streicher reach out to Richard Walls, a promising new professor at Stellenbosch University, who would later launch the university’s Fire Engineering department.
That introduction proved transformative. Streicher and Walls’ first meeting took place during the well-known six-shack fire test in Worcester. From there, collaboration developed rapidly.
Streicher then built the initial testing and control systems with his son, Dr Simon Streicher, a mathematical modelling and software engineer, assisting in writing Python code that communicated with Excel. Remarkably, parts of that original architecture still underpin elements of the laboratory’s testing and control environment today.
Picking up speed with the horizontal furnace challenge
One of the earliest major projects arrived through Stellenbosch University. A postgraduate student of Prof Walls had to test a flooring system, which required a large horizontal furnace measuring approximately 6 m x 4 m.
At the time, the team of two at Ignis had little certainty about how such a system should be built. However, they had enthusiasm for the challenge.
The furnace was constructed on outdoor paving at one of Streicher’s properties using concrete blocks. Primitive by international laboratory standards, but functional.
The result was a successful one-hour test. The student eventually converted the work into a PhD, demonstrating how practical testing capability could directly support academic fire engineering research within South Africa.
The game-changer: The cone calorimeter challenge
The most significant turning point in Ignis Fire Testing’s development came through the growing relationship between the laboratory and Stellenbosch University.
By then, the lab at least had an official name, as well as time and some money. On the other hand, Prof. Walls had students ready to do research, but with meager local testing facilities at their disposal.
It was clear that South Africa urgently needed access to a cone calorimeter for reaction-to-fire testing without relying entirely on expensive overseas facilities.
One of Prof Walls’ PhD students spent time researching cone calorimetry at the University of Edinburgh and returned convinced that a cone calorimeter could be built locally. During the COVID period, Streicher constructed the first cone calorimeter in his garage.
Constructing the cone calorimeter, along with the control and analysis software, proved extremely challenging because Streicher had only the EN 5660 code to guide him, along with incomplete, poorly detailed drawings and undecipherable descriptions. Learning how to measure and calculate the results accurately took several months of dedicated study to fully understand the science behind cone calorimetry.
Another challenge was that Ignis operated largely in isolation, and still does. Whenever he sought information about equipment or laboratory operations, other labs would close off, fearing competition, as if South Africa could somehow outpace the rest of the world.
Yet the effort succeeded.
Soon afterwards, the Thermal Insulation Products & Systems Association of South Africa (TIPSASA) approached Ignis because the South African industry urgently needed local reaction-to-fire testing capability, as testing abroad was too expensive.
Continued collaboration with Stellenbosch University
According to Streicher, one of the defining moments for fire engineering in South Africa occurred in 2016, when Prof Walls established the Fire Engineering Research Unit within the Department of Civil Engineering at Stellenbosch University. It remains the country’s only dedicated university-based fire engineering department.
The collaboration between Ignis Fire Testing and Stellenbosch University continues today through formal agreements focused on science, engineering principles, and research and development.
Ignis has supported numerous of the university's PhD and master’s students over the years, granting them access to their testing environment and expertise. Streicher also co-authored several papers with students and serves as an ad hoc lecturer.
Ignis remains dedicated to helping train fire engineers with a scientific, mathematical, and engineering-based knowledge – a capability that is critically important for the future of fire safety in South Africa.
Building a national testing capability
Today, Ignis Fire Testing operates from a facility of approximately 1,800 square metres, including a substantial free-burning test area with an 18-metre height capability. The total investment in equipment and development is estimated between R25 million and R30 million.
The facility supports a wide range of testing activities, including:
Fire resistance testing and furnace testing
Load-bearing fire testing
Reaction-to-fire testing
Façade testing to EN 8414
Room corner testing
Free-burning testing
Sprinkler and suppression testing
Fire extinguisher testing to SANS 1910
Thermal insulation material property testing
Concrete cube strength testing
Flexural beam testing
Most equipment at Ignis is constructed and maintained internally through direct access to fabrication facilities, skilled technical personnel, and in-house electronic engineering support.
More than a commercial fire-testing laboratory
As is clear, the main drive behind the development of Ignis was never commercial success but rather a response to necessity.
The result is a facility that now contributes not only to industry compliance, but also to research, education, product development, and the advancement of fire engineering within the country.