Large Language Models in Fire Engineering: An Examination of Technical
  Questions Against Domain Knowledge
Haley Hostetter M. Z. Naser Xinyan Huang John Gales
This communication presents preliminary findings from comparing two recent
chatbots, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard, in the context of fire
engineering by evaluating their responses in handling fire safety related
queries. A diverse range of fire engineering questions and scenarios were
created and examined, including structural fire design, fire prevention
strategies, evacuation, building code compliance, and fire suppression systems
(some of which resemble those commonly present in the Fire Protection exam
(FPE)). The results reveal some key differences in the performance of the
chatbots, with ChatGPT demonstrating a relatively superior performance. Then,
this communication highlights the potential for chatbot technology to
revolutionize fire engineering practices by providing instant access to
critical information while outlining areas for further improvement and
research. Evidently, and when it matures, this technology will likely be
elemental to our engineers' practice and education.