Fire Science Show
Fire Science Show connects fire researchers and practitioners with a society of fire engineers, firefighters, architects, designers, and others interested in creating a fire-safe future. Through interviews with diverse experts, it presents the history of the field as well as the most novel advancements. The show is produced in partnership with OFR Consultants.
Episodes
269 - Fire investigations and the scientific method with Vincent Brannigan
A fire scene looks like a puzzle, but it’s a puzzle where the pieces melt, burn, and get hauled away before anyone can measure them. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, I sit down with Professor Vincent Brannigan to ask a questions - does a fire investigation truly use the scientific method, or are we doing something else and calling it science?Vincent brings a rare mix of experience as a fire protec
268 - Is critical velocity that critical?
Critical velocity is supposed to be the clean moment when tunnel smoke control flips from unsafe to safe. But after too many real projects and too many review battles, I am very sure that such a single number cannot be a sole proxy of what is safe or unsafe... So why it has so much power over my design?In this solo episode I walk through why critical velocity became the world's favorite proxy
267 - Modelling Fire Growth with Stephen Welch
Pretty CFD flames are something we got used to, but they usually are a product of our design assumptions - the design fire. While they give us a lovely illusion of being "real" fires, predicting real compartment fire growth is a completely different game. We’re joined by Dr. Stephen Welch (University of Edinburgh) to get honest about what “modeling fire spread” actually means, how quickl
266 - Compartment fire framework with Vinny Gupta
A compartment fire is more than just “a fire in a room.” The moment flames, smoke, and heat are trapped by walls and fed through openings, the physics changes and so do the hazards we design for. We sit down with Dr. Vinny Gupta (University of Waterloo) to rebuild compartment fire thinking from the ground up, from what the enclosure does to airflow and smoke layers to why those effects still ancho
265 - How fires can lead to a nuclear winter? with Stephen Welch
As a kid of 80s and 90s, a lot of the pop culture was around the post-apocalyptic scenarios following a nuclear exchange. I always thought a nuclear winter is a consequence of atomic bombs falling down, but now as a fire researcher I've learnt it is mostly about fires, after all. Today I sit down with Dr Stephen Welch (University of Edinburgh) to trace the fire-engineering-heavy pathway from
264 - Engineering Firebrand Showers with Samuel L. Manzello
A wind-driven ember shower is a key wildfire exposures a building can face, but we have not yet fully understood or accounted for them in making our communities wildfire resilient. Today we sit down with Samuel L. Manzello of Tohoku University and Reax Engineering to unpack how in the last 20 years the firebrand science went from not being able to characterize the features of them well to being ab
263 - Developments in modelling WUI fires with Arnaud Trouvé
Wildland-Urban Interface fires are a class of fires that deserves own models, own studies and a lot of research focus. This is what I discuss today with prof. Arnaud Trouvé from the University of Maryland, shortly before he has given his plenary talk at the recent Combustion Symposium in Kyoto. In this interview, Arnaud explains what makes wildland urban interface (WUI) fires and urban conflagrati
262 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 22 - Optical diagnostics in fire with Elizabeth Weckman
In todays episode of fire fundamentals we talk with Professor Elizabeth Weckman from University of Waterloo about advanced optical diagnostics that let fire researchers read temperature, chemistry, soot, and velocity from light without relying only on probes. We break down what cameras, infrared imaging, spectroscopy, lasers, and PIV can reveal, plus the calibration and interpretation pitfalls tha
261 - The story of the Cone Calorimeter with Vyto Babrauskas
The cone calorimeter sits in thousands of labs, shaping what we know about flammability, smoke production, and heat release rate. This essential piece of equipment comes with quite a story of how it was engineered or why its “obvious” design choices were anything but obvious. We wanted that history from the source, so we invited Professor Vyto Babrauskas to walk us through the decisions, constrain
260 - Fire safety in a carbon budget with Cecilia Wetterqvist and Axel Mossberg
A carbon budget can feel like a hard wall in modern building design, and once you treat CO2 as currency, everything starts competing for a slice of it. The problem is that fire safety systems often show up in those spreadsheets only as a penalty: extra embodied carbon for sprinklers, alarms, and protection. What gets ignored is the payoff. A serious fire can erase years of “sustainable” choices th
259 - Communicating fire science with politicians with Birgitte Messerschmidt
Fire safety is a tough “product” to sell because the best outcome looks like nothing happened. That’s exactly why we sat down with Birgitte Messerschmidt (NFPA) to talk about communicating fire science to politicians, regulators, grant bodies, and other people in positions of power who can approve policies, permits, and funding, often with only a few minutes to spare. We share what changes when yo
258 - e-mobility fires in trains with Adam Barowy
A battery fire on a train is not “just another small fire.” When a lithium-ion battery in an e-scooter or e-bike fails, the rail car can behave like a long pipe that moves smoke fast, limits escape options, and compresses decision-making into minutes.We sit down with Adam Barowy from UL Research Institutes FSRI to unpack new full-scale passenger rail car burn tests using real micro-mobility device
257 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 21 - Radiation with Simo Hostikka
In this episode of fire fundamentals we sit down with Professor Simo Hostikka from Aalto University to cover radiation in fires, both from the angle of physical phenomena and ways to model it. In this episode we cover following topics: feel less mysterious, from blackbody basics and role of radiation actually does inside the CFD N-S equation. Spectrum and emissivity to real engineering outcomes li
256 - Modelling turbulent combustion in fire CFD with Bart Merci
While we can get pretty far with a very simple approximation of what a fire is in our fire cfd, at some point our simplications are not enough. And there is a plenty of features and phenomena, for which we simply need a better tool to handle - carbon monoxide, soot, extinction, flashover behavior, and what happens when ventilation disappears. At the IAFSS symposium, we sit down with Professor Bar
255 - Timber load bearing capacity in fire from nano- to megascale with Felix Wiesner
A timber column can survive the heating phase of a fire resistance test and still collapse later, after the flames are gone. We know there is so much more to structures in fires than the test demonstrates, but how much exactly do we know about timber nowadays? In this episode we try to dive deeper and discuss mass timber fire safety, structural fire engineering, and what a fire resistance rating d
254 - Communicating fire science with firefighters, with Steve Kerber
Fire science should have its place at the fireground, yet I've learned how hard it is to communicate it with the key stakeholder - the firefighters. It's not my isolated experience, and that tension drives our conversation with Steve Kerber, Vice President at UL Research Institutes Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI). Today we dig into the real craft of communicating fire dynamics to f
253 - NERIS - the paradigm shift for the US fire data collection with Craig Weinschenk
A national fire statistics system that updates in weeks is not a statistics system, it is a history lesson. We talk with Dr. Craig Weinschenk from UL Research Institutes - Fire Safety Research Institute about NERIS (the National Emergency Response Information System) and why it represents a real shift in fire incident reporting, emergency response data, and fire service analytics across the United
252 - Substantiating Fire Models with Craig Hofmeister and Bryan Klein
Jumping straight to CFD has become the default move in fire safety engineering, but that habit can quietly weaken our work: more inputs, more assumptions, more ways to be wrong, and often no clearer link to the actual design question. We sit down with Craig Hofmeister and Brian Klein to unpack a practical, defensible way to choose the right fire model for the job using the SFPE guideline “Substant
251 - Occupant loads in Car Parks with Mike Spearpoint
“Two people per parking space” is one of those default fire engineering inputs that we are very used to place into a model without really thinking much of it. But it is one of those defaults that show a huge richness once you dig deeper. Are all parking spaces taken? Are people in their cars? What are they doing? How long have they been there concurrently... We take that simple rule and pull on th
250 - Communicating fire science with construction professionals
A fire strategy can be technically correct, but if the team building the building never truly understands it - goals and objectives may be missed. For the 250th Fire Science Show, we slow down and talk about the craft of communicating fire science to construction professionals so that the intent survives real projects, real deadlines, and real handovers. This episode is an extended version of my t
249 - PBD of a large car park with EVs (Case study) with Jonathan Hodges, Mark McKinnon and Christian Rippe
From the SFPE Performance Based Design Conference in Singapore, we sit down with Jonathan Hodges and Mark McKinnon (UL Research Institutes) and Christian Rippe (Jensen Hughes) moments after their case study presentation to break down a modern parking garage fire engineering workflow with a huge does of performance based and probabilistic approaches.We talk about what changes when today’s vehicle f
248 - JRC update on Fire Safety Engineering in Europe with Francesca Sciarretta
Fire safety in Europe is shaped in a challenging ecosystem - each member country owns its fire safety rules, yet the construction market, standards, and technical language are increasingly shared. I’m joined by Francesca Sciarretta, Scientific Project Officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), to explain how the JRC supports EU decision-making with independent research and w
247 - Calculation methods for fire resistance with Piotr Turkowski
You don’t always need a furnace to end up with a fire resistance rating, but you do need to understand what kind of “proof” you’re actually creating. I’m joined again by Dr. Piotr Turkowski from ITB to unpack calculation methods for fire resistance and the real-world chain from engineering assumptions to a Declaration of Performance. We talk about when standards and European Assessment Documents (
246 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 20 - Fire Resistance Criteria with Piotr Turkowski
In this episode of fire fundamentals with the ITB fire resistance expert Piotr Turkowski we break down what a fire resistance rating criteria, and what the letters behind ratings like “REI 60” exactly stand for. We use lab experience to explain where the standards are clear, where they are oddly traditional, and where comparisons between products can mislead. • ISO definition of fire resistance as
245 - FDS input file ASMR in forest
plume_rise_1.fds from the FDS Validation Guide (by NIST)&HEAD CHID='plume_rise_1', TITLE='Test plume rise height in stable atmosphere' /&MESH IJK=50,52,50, XB=-50.,50.,-52.,52.,0.,100., MULT_ID='mesh1' /&MULT ID='mesh1', DZ=100., K_UPPER=1 /&MESH IJK=50,52,50, XB= 50.,250.,-104.,104.,0.,200., MULT_ID='mesh2' /&MULT ID='mes
244 - Decision making in large-scale evacuations with Erica Kuligowski
When one takes a decision to evacuate and starts moving, this is not the end of their decision-making process. Which route to take? Who to contact? How to arrange a place of shelter? Where to go first? Have I forgotten anything? I previously discussed the decision-making with Erica Kuligowski from RMIT, and today we're meeting again to follow up on decision-making for large-scale evacuations.
243 - 20 Informal Settlement Fire Experiments with Sam Stevens
A fire in an informal settlement is not just another small building fire. It can be the first domino in a fast-moving neighborhood event, and the little details like the wall material, roof material, door location, even a light breeze, can decide what happens next. I’m joined by Dr. Sam Stevens from Kindling to unpack a massive FSRI funded experimental program carried out in South Africa that burn
242 - Learning from Earthquake Engineering with Negar Elhami-Khorasani and Justin Moresco
Being a part of broader civil engineering and built environment sciences, we have the unique opportunity to learn from other "sister" disciplines, rather than coming up with everything on our own. Especially, when those disciplines have 100+ years of experience in investigating stuff that has recently emerged as one of the leading challenges in our field.The other discipline is Earthquak
241 - Opportunities with AI (in 2026) with MZ Naser
Is it too late to start with the AI in 2026? It wen't so far, does it still make sense to get interested in this technology?Absolutely. Today we sit down with MZ Naser of Clemson University to map a clear, useful path for engineers who want results without the hype. We start with the basics - clean data, the right algorithm, and a realistic mindset - and climb toward explainability, causality
240 - Distressed by the AI stuff around
I’m not stressed by AI itself. I’m stressed by the insatiable greed of those who profit from it, even if it means sacrificing large parts of the population. I'm also stressed about how ruthlessly it can be abused to cause deliberate harm.In this episode I'm not taking you into world of fire science, but rather into my own thoughts on how the AI revolution influences our lives. And I was
239 - Assessing post-fire structural damage in tunnels with Negar Elhami-Khorasani
A tunnel can ride out a fire without collapsing (or even critical visible structural damage), but a question whether it is safe for operations, and what is its long-term residual fire resistance remains. With repair bills being in high seven-eight figures, this is more than just a theoretical question... In this episode we dig into the hard middle ground of fire damage post mild/large fires, and c
238 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 19 - Defining fires in your models
Welcome to another fire fundamentals episode! Today we dig into how to place a fire in a model so results reflect real physics. From plume inputs to FDS burners, we show where HRRPUA, radiative fraction, and D* make or break smoke your calculations. Things considered in this episode:• why defining the design HRR is separate from placing the source• what a flame is and why we cannot resolve its che
237 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 18 - Explosions with Ali Rangwala and Lorenz Boeck
Welcome back to Fire Fundamentals! Today with prof. Ali Rangwala from WPI and dr Lorenz Boeck from Rembe and WPI we take the world of explosion protection engineering. In this episode we touch:• distinguishing fires and explosions by time scale and damage mode• taxonomy of explosions by energy density and deposition time• hybrid mixtures in coal mines and turbulent burning velocity• severity metri
236 - Fitting an efficient smoke control system in a confined space
A tight, historic cellar. Arched ceilings. Long corridors. Tiny shafts. We faced a design wall: to keep routes tenable, we needed twice the extraction that the building could carry. At that point, I've failed as an engineer - I've reached my limit and could not find a solution.Some time later, a solution appeared in my head from nowhere —what if the fan changed with the fire? Not in a cr
235 - A Repeating Tragedy with Lazaros Filippidis
A fire in a public venue happened again. No, I am not talking about the one in Switzerland. Since the tragic New Year celebration, we had one more near-miss in Madrid on Jan 10th 2026... In fact, who knows how many we actually had? It is a tragedy that feels like it is playing on repeat... In this podcast episode, we try to dig into why nightclub fires follow the same script decade after decade—wh
234 - Building a fire safety culture with George Boustras
Today we sit down with safety science leader George Boustras - a professor at European University Cyprus, UNESCO Chair in Disaster Risk Reduction and Societal Safety in South East Mediterranean and founder of Centre of Excellence in Risk & Decision Sciences (CERIDES). With George we try to examine fire engineering from the wider safety lens, exploring why culture—not just compliance—decides ou
233 - Safety as a moving target with Danielle Antonelis
Fires in informal settlements and humanitarian settings rarely make headlines, but they define daily life for millions. We sit down with Kindling founder Danielle Antonelis to trace a four-year arc from the non-profits early days and ideas to grounded results: a global shelter database, experimental campaign with 20 full-scale burns, and a learning model that puts residents first. The core shift i
232 - 2025 Wrap up episode - How fires turn into catastrophies
Catastrophes don’t happen because of one bad decision; they happen when many small assumptions fail at the same time. I take this opportunity to talk about my thoughts related to the Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong. I attempt to examine how a routine ignition escalated into hundreds of compartment fires across multiple buildings—and what that says about the limits of our current fire engineering.
Merry Christmas everyone!
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you Merry Christmas, a great time with your families, a bit of rest and time to reflect, and an awesome 2026 to come!If you are desperate for fire science on Christmas Eve, check out the OFR report on open car park fires, which we were able to contribute to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-open-sided-car-parks----The Fire Science
231 - BESS explosion prevention and mitigation with Lorenz Boeck and Nick Bartlett
Today we cover another branch of safety of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), that is explosion prevention in mitigation. I always thought you can either end with a fire or with an explosion, and boy I was wrong... but we will go back to this later. Now I bring on Dr. Lorenz Boeck (REMBE) and Nick Bartlett (Atar Fire) to unpack how gas released during thermal runaway turns a container into a d
230 - Wind driven conflagration experiments with Faraz Hedayati
A facility with 105 synchronized fans pushing hurricane-class wind across a full-size house while a live fire... This is not science fiction - this is a real research capacity that helps us re-shape our knowledge on the full scale building ignition, fire spread, and failure. That’s the stage at IBHS, where we dig into how wind-driven fire behave differently to small-scale and how tiny choices arou
229 - Learning from 900 fires with Björn Maiworm
What can you learn after processing observations across 900 severe fires? A lot. Actually, I will send you to the paper straight away:Evaluating 900 Potentially Harming Fires in Germany: Is the Prescriptive Building Code Effective? German Fire Departments Assessed Fire Safety Measures in Buildings Through On-Site Inspections And now let's dissect this. We sit down with Björn Maiworm of the Mu
228 - Quantifying the expected utility of fire tests with Andrea Franchini
What do you expect from running a fire test? I would hope that it improves my state of knowledge. But do they do this? We often pursue them blindly, but it seems there is a way to do this in an informed way. In this episode we explore a rigorous, practical way to select and design experiments by asking a sharper question: which test delivers the most decision-changing information for the least cos
227 - The differences between EV and ICEV fires in car parks
A viral clip of an EV igniting was what started my worries about safety in car parks I have been designing. Are we ready for fast growing fires? Since 2019 I've learned and studied a lot, I've relaxed on some aspects of it and was able to identify they areas where a lot more engineering considerations should be placed. In this episode I would like to take you inside the engineering choic
226 - New Swiss fire safety code with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki
It is a massive effort to rewrite a national fire safety code around measurable risk, explicit targets, and cost-effectiveness. But sometimes, there are great reasons to do so. In this episode, together with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki we take you inside Switzerland’s sweeping reform, where a new federal law sets a maximum individual risk for life safety, ties property protection to
225 - Battery Energy Storage Systems with Noah Ryder
Demand for the energy storage is as high as ever, and is about to triple-quadruple. The development of technology is at unprecedented phase, and even within a single project you may face different cell, battery or container generations. This pace reshapes how we think about battery energy storage safety, from enclosure design to emergency response. We sat down with Noah Ryder from the Fire and Ris
224 - Navigating the complexities to change our field - a roundtable with Steve McGuirk and Brian Meacham
This week, in the Fire Science Show, we host a roundtable discussion on complexities in fire safety science and engineering.Most safety failures don’t come from a single mistake—they emerge when people, technology, and institutions misalign. In an ever-changing field in which complexities just go up, we open up a debate on how to cope with that so that the entire field goes in the right direction.
223 - Heat-induced delamination in CLT with Antonela Čolić
In this episode of the Fire Science Show we invite dr. Antonela Čolić from the OFR Consultants, to break down the performance of adhesives used in CLT in fire, what differences between the glues are observable at the microscale and how they show up in real structure fires.We compare common polyurethane adhesives: one that softens near 200–220 C and one that resists softening, crosslinks, and ulti
222 - Integrating WUI risk management and fire safety engineering with Pascale Vacca
In this episode we try to demonstrate another step in integrating fire engineering into WUI risk management, and vice versa. These two areas together form some sort of fire engineering method, which I strongly believe will be an important part of our profession in the future. Today I got to sit down with Dr. Pascale Vacca from UPC to unpack a practical, end-to-end framework for wildland–urban inte
221 - Fire experiments at the ISS (SoFIE-MIST) with Michael Gollner
Fire doesn’t play by Earth’s rules once you leave gravity behind. In this deep dive with Professor Michael Gollner, we unpack what the recent experiments at the ISS called SoFIE-MIST taught us about solid fuel flammability in microgravity—how tiny ventilation, oxygen levels, and pressure shifts determine whether a flame spreads, stalls, or vanishes. The details are surprising: blue “bubble” flames
220 - Test vs experiment with David Morrisset
In this episode we dive into the ap between standardized tests and experiments, trying to figure out (a) is there a difference and (b) if there is, could not understanding the difference quietly erode safety. With guest David Morrisset (Queensland University), we unpack furnace ratings that read like time but aren’t, cladding classifications that were never meant for façades, and the infamous bird
219 - Giving back with the SFPE Foundation - with Leslie Marshall
In this episode, we give focus to the SFPE Foundation – a catalyst transforming how fire engineering research is funded, conducted, and shared globally. In this conversation with Leslie Marshall, Interim Executive Director of the SFPE Foundation, we discover how a relatively small organization has distributed over $1.2 million in grants, scholarships, and research funding since 2021. While the Fou
218 - Fire decay and cooling phases with Andrea Lucherini
What happens when the flames die down? It's a question rarely addressed in fire engineering, yet the decay and cooling phases of fires can be more dangerous than peak fire conditions. In this deep-dive conversation with Dr. Andrea Lucherini from Frisbee at ZAG in Slovenia, we uncover why these overlooked phases matter profoundly for structural safety.Most engineers focus on protecting structu
217 - Things that go wrong with the smoke control and how we fix them
In my personal view, an alarming truth about building fire safety lies in the gap between what's designed and what actually works in a building. After conducting 1000+ hot smoke tests in 200+ buildings, my experience is that most (maybe even 90%) of buildings had deficiencies in their smoke control systems, with 30% experiencing issues significant enough to potentially endanger occupants duri
216 - What do we measure and how? with David Morrisset
What happens when we stick a thermocouple into a fire? The answer is surprisingly complex and has profound implications for fire safety engineering. In this deep-dive episode, Dr. David Morrisset from Queensland University joins Wojciech to unravel the science of fire measurements that underpins every experiment, test report, and dataset in our field.The conversation reveals a critical truth often
215 - Lessons from the 2018 Camp Fire with Eric D. Link
The devastating 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California serves as a haunting reminder of how rapidly wildfires can overwhelm communities. We have not known anything like it - the flames raced through Paradise at four miles per hour, 30,000 residents had mere minutes to evacuate, and many couldn't escape in time. What happens when the fire goes worse than worst case scenario, but still people n
214 - Thermal Imagers with Martin Veit
The world looks entirely different through a thermal camera lens, especially in a fire scenario. These devices reveal harsh temperature gradients between hot and cold surfaces, adding another dimension to how fire safety professionals understand and navigate dangerous environments.Thermal cameras have transformed firefighting operations with astonishing effectiveness. Studies show that in smoke-fi
213 - Setting up your own chatbot with Ruggiero Lovreglio and Amir Rafe
The AI revolution has arrived, but fire safety engineers face a critical dilemma: how to leverage powerful AI tools while protecting confidential project data. Professor Ruggiero Rino Lovreglio from Massey University and Dr. Amir Rafe from Utah State University join us to explore the world of local Large Language Models (LLMs) - AI systems you can run privately on your own computer without sending
212 - A glossary for evacuation with Enrico Ronchi and Ezel Üsten
When experts from different disciplines attempt to collaborate on complex problems, such as evacuation modelling, we often discover that we're not speaking the same language. Even seemingly simple terms like "density," "velocity," and "distance" carry dramatically different meanings across physics, psychology, engineering, and computer science.In this episode, we
211 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 17 - Detecting fires
In episode 17 of the Fire Fundamentals, we delve into the fire detection technology. Fire detection forms the critical foundation of all active fire protection measures, serving as the prerequisite for any fire safety engineering solution to work effectively. Following key points are discussed:Detection systems must balance sensitivity with reliability to avoid false alarms that disrupt building o
210 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 16 - Turbulence with Randy McDermott
In the 16th part of the Fire Fundamentals series, we invite Randy McDermott from NIST to join us for a deep dive into turbulence and its critical role in fire dynamics modelling. We explore the physics behind turbulent combustion and how it fundamentally shapes fire behaviour, plume dynamics, and simulation accuracy.In this episode we cover:Defining turbulence as the enhancement of mixing and heat
209 - Updates from the SFPE with Chris Jelenewicz
In this podcast episode, I invited Chris Jelenewicz, the CEO of SFPE, to bring me up to date on the society. The SFPE Handbook on Fire Protection Engineering is undergoing a major revision with the sixth edition expected by summer's end, expanding to five volumes with significant new content on emerging topics like wildland fires and lithium-ion batteries. In this episode, we cover how the ha
208 - The basics of fire water supply with Szymon Kokot
Water might seem like the simplest part of firefighting – just point and spray, right? Well, as you can imagine, the reality is a bit more complex. In this conversation with veteran firefighter and CFBT instructor Szymon Kokot, we pull back the curtain on firefighting's most critical resource to reveal the intricate science and logistics behind effective fire suppression.Did you know a standa
207 - Fire Safety of Balconies with Mike Spearpoint and Konstantinos Chotzoglou
As a consequence of the Grenfell Tower disaster, some strong legislation was proposed, such as a combustible ban on building walls. This, however, affected more than just the building facades, as it excluded materials such as laminated glass used as balcony balustrades. Today, the path forward demands evidence that could inform decisions on the future of laminated glass in this use. In this conver
206 - Fire Engineering Infrastructural Projects with Mukesh Tomar
Today I'm taking you for a sightseeing trip to see what fire safety looks like beyond our usual office, residential buildings and car parks. Fire engineering takes on an entirely different dimension when applied to massive infrastructure projects where conventional building codes provide minimal guidance and engineers must forge their own path.Dr. Mukesh Tomar from Jacobs takes us deep into t
205 - FDS maintenance and development with Randy McDermott
Dr Randy McDermott takes us behind the scenes of fire science's most critical software tool in this conversation about the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) developed at NIST. As one of the developers, Randy offers valuable insights into how this essential modelling tool is maintained, improved, and adapted to meet the evolving challenges of the fire safety community.The conversation begins with a
204 - 4th Birthday of the Podcast. Some stories about the past and the future
Four years ago, what began as a mission to preserve valuable fire safety engineering conversations has grown into a fairly large platform connecting professionals across 170+ countries. The journey to 200 episodes and nearly 200,000 downloads has been both challenging and deeply rewarding – in this episode, I share a bit about my journey, the state of things and the near future of the podcast. ***
203 - The lessons from repeating Jin's experiment on visibility in smoke
I've finally done it. We've repeated Jin's experiment! I thought I knew-it-all about that experiment, but boy... knowing and doing it are two different things. I can say, I've finally cleared my mind on some thoughts after this, which I am finally happy to share with all of you!First things first, massive thanks to my partner in crime Wai-Kit Wilson Cheung, from the group of pr
202 - Designing fire safety with firefighters in mind
The gap between fire safety engineering and firefighting operations creates a profound challenge that affects building safety worldwide. Even experienced fire safety engineers - myself included - face uncertainty when designing for firefighters without being firefighters themselves. Yet many building codes explicitly require engineers to account for firefighting operations in their designs.This ex
201 - The last fire - a novel set in industrial fire engineering with Joaquim Casal
What happens when a lifetime of studying industrial fire hazards meets the creative mind of a novelist? In this conversation with Professor Joaquim Casal, we explore the unique intersection of fire safety engineering and science fiction through his novel "The Last Fire."Professor Casal, a retired academic from Universitat Politécnica Catalunya and founder of their fire research group, ha
200 - Façade flammability across scales and standards with Guillermo Rein and Matt Bonner
Episode 200! And for this special episode, I've travelled to London to interview Prof. Guillermo Rein and Dr Matt Bonner on a piece of research carried out at Imperial College London, with the experiments performed in our laboratory at the ITB.In this episode, we discuss the concept of flammability of the building facades and how this flammability is assessed with different testing methods a
199 - Commercial Timber Guidebook with Danny Hopkin and Luis Gonzalez Avila
We know a whole lot more about mass timber in fire than we did a few years ago (even when I’ve just started the podcast 199 episodes back …). But is this knowledge widely used in engineering practice? Is it used in the same way by different stakeholders? Definitely not.This is why to move timber into something we would consider “new normal”, we need more than research. We need a consensus on how t
198 - Waste and recycling fires and how to fight them with Ryan Fogelman
The devastating impact of waste and recycling industry fires costs approximately $2.5 billion annually in the US and Canada alone, with lithium-ion batteries causing roughly 50% of these incidents. In this episode with Ryan Fogelman from Fire Rover, we discuss:• Understanding the scale of waste facility fires and why traditional fire protection methods often fail in these environments• How lithium
197 - Fire spread through external walls pt. 2 with FSRI
When wildfire threatens neighbourhoods with closely-spaced homes, what determines whether flames leap from one structure to the next? The FSRI research team - Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn - joins us to unveil their experimental series that methodically dissects the pathways through which fire spreads between buildings.The team walks us through their massive outdoor
196 - Fire spread through external walls pt. 1 with FSRI
In this podcast episode, we host Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn, all from the FSRI, to cover their recent experimental research on fire spread through external walls. This is part 1 of the interview - the background, rationale and context. In part 2, we cover the experiments themselves, findings and actionable guidance from the experiments.This research is conducted w
195 - Fire Safety Cases with Chris Mayfield and Martyn Ramsden
The UK's Building Safety Act requires high-risk buildings to maintain comprehensive fire safety cases - living documents that identify hazards, mitigate risks, and establish clear accountability for building safety. This is the subject of my discussion with Chris Mayfield and Martyn Ramsden from OFR.• Safety cases differ from fire strategies by being owned by the building's accountable p
194 - Playing with batteries with Xinyan Huang
Professor Xinyan Huang from Hong Kong Polytechnic University shares his expertise on battery fires and the various experimental methods researchers use to trigger thermal runaway events under controlled conditions.• Terminology matters - "thermal runaway" more accurately describes battery failure than "ignition" as the critical reactions occur inside the cell• Nail penetration
193 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 15 - Extinguishing systems with Bogdan Racięga
Welcome to another Fire Fundamentals. This time the episode is focused on various extinguishing technologies. Invited guest - Bogdan Racięga, Director at Baltic Fire Laboratory and expert in fire protection systems breaks down the fundamental differences between suppression and extinction technologies and how they work in real-world applications.Clear distinction between suppression systems (contr
192 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 14 - Jet fan systems for car parks
Jet-fan systems effectively control smoke in car parks by creating directed airflows that transport smoke from one point to another, similar to how longitudinal ventilation works in tunnels. These systems offer cost-effectiveness and simplicity by eliminating ductwork while providing powerful smoke management capabilities when properly designed and understood.• Jet Fans create momentum transfer th
191 - Committee participation with Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both
This episode explores the invaluable contributions of community participation in fire safety technical committees. Joining committees is not just about sharing expertise; it’s a journey that transforms careers and fosters growth. Our guests, Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both, reveal how their experiences in various committees, including the NFPA, ISO, ASTM and CEN, have shaped their professiona
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