North­ern Fire Safe­ty Forum brings indus­try experts togeth­er in Oulu

The North­ern Fire Safe­ty Forum was held on Tues­day, 21 April 2026, at BusinessOulu’s Start­up Event Space in the heart of Oulu city cen­tre. The forum was organ­ised by Jensen & Hugh­es’ Oulu office, part of Jensen & Hugh­es, an inter­na­tion­al fire safe­ty con­sult­ing com­pa­ny in co-oper­a­tion with Busi­nes­sOulu. The event was high­ly top­i­cal, as invest­ments relat­ed to the green tran­si­tion are also dri­ving the need for new and advanced fire safe­ty solu­tions.

CEO Samuli Heikkilä and Busi­nes­sOulu Key Account Man­ag­er Janne Hietanie­mi wel­comed par­tic­i­pants, after which the morn­ing con­tin­ued with a gen­er­ous break­fast. The pro­gramme opened with a more detailed intro­duc­tion to Jensen & Hugh­es. The company’s Oulu office was estab­lished in 2021 and is the north­ern­most Jensen & Hugh­es office in Fin­land. The com­pa­ny pri­mar­i­ly serves North­ern Fin­land, offer­ing strong exper­tise in fire safe­ty con­sult­ing. One of the key strengths of the Oulu office is its indus­tri­al-sec­tor know-how, with safe­ty audits high­light­ed as an exam­ple.

In a case pre­sen­ta­tion, Mikko Par­ta­nen dis­cussed fire safe­ty design at Nokia’s Lin­nan­maa site, explain­ing how dif­fer­ent design approach­es ulti­mate­ly result­ed in a cost-effi­cient and flex­i­ble solu­tion. One of the chal­lenges at the site was the use of wood in the first-floor façade, which intro­duces spe­cif­ic fire safe­ty con­sid­er­a­tions.

The third pre­sen­ta­tion was deliv­ered by Mikko Salmi­nen, who focused on the fire design of steel struc­tures. As an exam­ple, he pre­sent­ed an indus­tri­al site in Ire­land where par­tial fire pro­tec­tion had already been imple­ment­ed ear­li­er. This posed chal­lenges for devel­op­ing a more com­pre­hen­sive fire safe­ty solu­tion.

The final pre­sen­ta­tion, led by Juho Pussi­nen, addressed fire safe­ty design for data cen­tres. This includes com­pre­hen­sive plan­ning of basic infra­struc­ture, ded­i­cat­ed pow­er sub­sta­tions, cool­ing sys­tems, and exten­sive coor­di­na­tion with mul­ti­ple author­i­ties. The rapid growth of data cen­tre projects in North­ern Fin­land places fire safe­ty design in a crit­i­cal role.The pre­sen­ta­tion sparked active dis­cus­sion, ques­tions, and reflec­tions on whether data cen­tre projects should also be con-sidered indus­tri­al projects.

After the reward­ing forum, some par­tic­i­pants con­tin­ued direct­ly to lunch. The evening pro­gramme was held at Jensen & Hugh­es’ Oulu office.

Text: Han­nele Ter­vo