Fire Testing Engineer
When a fire door is rated to hold for 60 minutes, it's because Jezel Quial proved it would.
Jezel never planned to work in fire testing. A civil engineer from the Philippines, she applied for what she thought was a construction firm in Dubai – and found herself in a fire testing laboratory instead. She hasn't looked back.
Jezel spent several years at the Dubai Civil Defence fire lab before joining BRANZ, where she works as a fire testing engineer in the fire resistance lab. Jezel burns doors, walls, beams and floors under load to find out how long they'll hold before they fail. It's testing that ensures products meet building code requirements before they reach the market.
After years of watching samples react under fire, Jezel has developed an instinct for how a test will play out. "Every test is different," she says, "and you learn something new every time."
"Every fire test is a chance to protect lives by proving that doors, walls and floors will hold when people need them most."
Qualifications
BEng (Civil Engineering), Eastern Samar State University