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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 mass urban ignitions to firestorms, through soot production and its injection into the stratosphere, up t
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Aug. 18, 2026
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 mass urban ignitions to firestorms, through soot production and its injection into the stratosphere, up t
Aug. 11, 2026
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 able to procur controlled experiments and standardized generators that can actually shape building cod
Aug. 4, 2026
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 conflagrations so hard to predict, also with a focus on the combustion phenomena. Arnaud is interested in how
July 28, 2026
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 that can quietly ruin your data. Things covered in this episode: • why optical diagnostics are “non-in
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