The first historical record of the concept of Fire protection dates back to the Roman times when Emperor Nero ordered the city of Rome to be built after a great fire using noncombustible materials. The discipline of Fire Engineering emerged in the early twentieth century separate from other branches of Engineering owing to disasters spilling out of industrial growth even though several countries in the latter half of the nineteenth century witness wild fires in major cities. The early part of the last century saw the establishment of the first degree program in fire protection engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the U.S. The emergence of the Institute of Fire Engineers in the U K in 1918 was basically out the need to have deep knowledge in the field of Fire Engineering.
The establishment of the first postgraduate course in New Zealand in 1995 in fire safety engineering saw the turnout of notable alumni devoted to Fire Engineering. Soon several other Institutions followed suit and soon the world witnessed flourish growth in educational institutions offering courses in Fire Protection, safety, engineering and so on.
In India, situated right in the heart of the great historic city of Nagpur, National Fire Service College owes its existence to organize advanced training of Fire Officers rendering valuable technical training and provide knowledge to higher levels of echelons in the Country.Slowly gaining importance a need was felt to bring the area of Firefighting into more scientific basis and the vision of Prof M.G. Pradhan, the founder of the present college, felt that there should be a college devoted entirely to all technical aspects of firefighting brings the discipline of Fire engineering.
The college introduced a B. TECH. (Fire Engineering) program in 1978, affiliated to RTM Nagpur University with an aim to generate technically competent fire engineers for the numerous fire hazard prone organizations of the country. This was further strengthened by the Government of India in 2010 when an up-gradation scheme was approved and implemented with full-fledged facilities and groomed to world class facilities at National Fire Service College. At present, the National Fire Service has state of the art laboratories, class rooms and training facilities at a sprawling campus of 43 acres. With this, the B. TECH. (Fire Engineering) course has also been improved with an endeavor to conduct youth empowered with engineering skills so as to enforce higher standards of fire safety in all parts of the country.
The National Fire Service College is only institution offering a B. TECH (Fire Engineering) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. National Fire Service College is only one of its kind in the Country and perhaps in the whole of Asia.