June 3, 2025
204 - 4th Birthday of the Podcast. Some stories about the past and the future
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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.
*** Important notice: at the end of the show notes is a survey , and I would be thrilled if you participated in it. Back to the news post ***
Behind every weekly episode lies 10-12 hours of preparation, recording, and editing. From coordinating with international guests across time zones to balancing out the technical depth and accessibility, producing the Fire Science Show has become a finely-tuned process. Some recordings happen at 5 AM, some late at night, all to bring the most valuable fire science conversations to your ears.
This special anniversary episode pulls back the curtain on what makes the podcast work. You'll discover how episodes are created from concept to publication, learn about memorable moments (like the great LEGO collapse catastrophe during an interview with my podcasting idol Pat Flynn), and hear about challenges faced along the way. The most popular episodes – including fundamentals with Rory (2,500 listens) and timber fire safety with Danny Hopkin (1,800 listens) reveal what resonates most with our community of listeners. But all episodes are important, as they together create a space where complex fire science becomes accessible and engaging for professionals worldwide.
As we look toward the future, your input is essential. What topics should we cover? What format works best for you? The listener survey linked in our show notes is your chance to help shape the Fire Science Show's next chapter. Join us as we continue bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and practical application in fire safety engineering.
Lastly, but also very important. Massive shout out to the OFR for making this journey possible. If not you, we would not be celebrating this anniversary. Thank you so much for your support to the concept of freely accessible high-quality CPD delivered to any part of the world, any time someone feels like it!
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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.
00:00 - Four Years of Fire Science Show
06:24 - Celebrating With Matt Bonner's Song
10:43 - Four Years of Growth and Achievement
19:20 - Recording and Editing Process Revealed
27:51 - Value of Creating Fire Science Content
34:20 - Favorite Episodes and Memorable Moments
39:35 - Future Plans and Listener Survey
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Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show.
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This is a special broadcast as it is the fourth birthday of the Fire Science Show.
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So happy birthday, fire Science Show.
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I'm so happy that we're together for so long.
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I'm not sure if, for a podcast, it's objectively long or not.
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On one hand it feels like a split second, a blink of an eye, and we are here four years later.
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On the other hand, it's been 200 episodes and the library is enormous and keeps growing.
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So I'll leave that up to you to judge if it's a considerable number, but I'm just happy to be here and celebrate the birthday of the show In this episode.
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No fire science, my apologies, but it's still going to be a fun episode.
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I'm going to open up in front of you a little bit.
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In the podcast, my mission was to bring some conversations that happened among fire safety engineers to the broader audience.
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I was very disappointed that so many good conversations are lost when we just chat in the pub or at the conference.
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There's just a few people discussing an interesting subject and I know a lot of people would be interested in that conversation.
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And in the same way, during my journeys across the world while doing the podcast, I had a chance to talk with a lot of you, a lot of my fellow Fire Science Show listeners, and every of these conversations was a powerful impulse for me to continue, gave me a great source of energy and to make Fire Science Show the best podcast I can make.
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And while talking with you, a lot of you had a lot of questions and I've picked up some of ones that I've probably answered the most, as I reckon they're just interesting to you.
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So if you're a fan of Fire Science Show, you probably would like to know some of those things and I'm going to share them with you.
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So I'm going to tell you about the routine of making the podcast, how long it takes and so on, how I work with the guests, how the editing looks like.
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I'll talk about some favorite moments.
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I'll talk about some failures and some challenges.
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We will talk about what the future of Fire Science Show could look like, and I'll just tease that it looks bright.
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And one more important thing I also have prepared a survey for you.
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So this type of contact that we're having through the podcast is a little bit one directional and I would love it to be bi-directional.
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So I am gathering feedback about the Fire Science Show so I can make it a better experience for you.
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You will find the link to the survey in the show notes, and I'll also discuss the survey at the later part of this episode to give you the context, what I am looking for and how you can help me shape this podcast in such a way that it is a better experience for us both.
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And now, well, four years of spinning intros today, perhaps we should go back to episode 50, I believe it was when Matt Bonner gave me this beautiful celebratory song for the Fire science show, and I think it's a good moment to play it again.
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So, yeah, instead of intro, the fire science show song hey friend, what are you doing this wednesday?
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isn't it the perfect day to learn some fire safety?
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Because I know a show that'll blow your mind.
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Come, give it a listen.
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Who knows what you'll find?
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Cause there's a whole damn world of fire out there and the show's gonna cover it all.
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So come and spend an hour with my friend Wojciech.
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I know you're gonna have a ball.
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I know you're gonna have a ball.
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How fast can you leap if you have a disability?
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Or maybe you have problems with some smoke invisibility, or maybe timber buildings are of some concern?
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If you have an object, I'll tell you how it burns, Because we're going to talk to every fire expert, or at least the ones we know.
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So plug in your headphones this Wednesday and listen to the fire science show.
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If you have an object, I'll tell you how it burns.
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I always like that part.
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If you have an object, I'll tell you how it burns.
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I always like that part.
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Actually, at the end of the last year, we've submitted a big research grant, together with Kent University and Professor Bartmer C, on burning objects and finding out how they burn.
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It missed the mark by a little, almost got it, but we'll probably resubmit and eventually we'll be able to tell you about more burning objects than ever before.
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So we got the song.
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And there's one more thing I need to tell you, and that's about the sponsor of the podcast, which, of course, is OFR.
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And it's already three years that we're working together with OFR to deliver this podcast to you, and I can just say that if not this collaboration, we would not be at 200 episodes.
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So I am always thankful to OFR for all the support they've given to me and they literally made it possible for me to produce this podcast and keep it in the way how I envisioned it on day one.
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So thanks, ofr.
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Ofr is, of course, an independent, multi-award winning fire engineering consultancy with a reputation for delivering innovative safety-driven solutions.
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As the UK leading independent fire consultancy, a far globally established team has developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise, with colleagues working across the world to help protect people, property and the planet, and I actually really believe in that.
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I've met them multiple times.
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I've met Simon Simon and many of the directors and many of the OFR people and, yeah, they really stand behind those words.
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It's a pleasure to work with them.
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2025 is another year of collaboration between the Fire Science Show and the OFR, and I hope this continues.
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If you would like to learn more about OFR Consultants, or perhaps you would like to give it a try and join them on their multiple projects that they are working on currently, visit them at their website, ofrconsultantscom.
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And now let's talk about four years of the journey.
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That's a lot of time.
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I've just had episode 200.
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Well, those things go hand to hand, because the year has kind of 52 weeks, so every time there's a yearly anniversary, we're around the round number of episodes, but still, wow, 204 episodes into the podcast.
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It's something that blows my mind.
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I've started this with the full intention that if I make it to 2025, I've started this with the full intention that if I make it to 2025, I'll be happy, and then I'll decide what we do further.
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And as soon as I reached something like episode 20, I had some amazing episodes back then with Danny, with Sarah McAllister, with Brian Mitchum I remember that period of time it was obvious to me that this is not a roller coaster, this is a joy ride, and it is like this till today.
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So much has happened in my life in those four years, so much positive things that I can attribute to the podcast.
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Many of my colleagues who are on the show, when they send out some applications, they put in their professional CV that they have been a part of the Fire Science Show.
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They sometimes ask me for statistics.
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Actually, the recent ERC recipients Francesco Restuccia, enrico Ronchi, ruben Van Kool, all of them were frequent guests of the Fire Science Show and for me, you can imagine, it's even better.
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It is something I can.
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In the scientific community I can really brag about, and I don't mean the fire community.
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On fire community.
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I'm serving you, I'm happy to be a part of you and I'm simply thrilled that you're willing to spend your time with me learning new stuff about fire.
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But in the general scientific community you know professors, grants, awards, etc.
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The podcast is definitely a highlight of my professional curriculum.
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So, professionally speaking, it definitely was worth the invest time in this and since we've started this podcast, it got me to some amazing places.
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I have been keynoting SFP conference in Copenhagen last year, the performance-based design codes conference and, wow, I remember being on SFP conference 2015 in Copenhagen.
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That was the first SFP Europe.
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I think that was my first major international conference as a young scientist presenting my work on a sports arena.
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It was an interesting project, by the way, probably worth even a podcast episode one day, and back then I've never thought I will come back to an SFP, even in Copenhagen, giving an opening keynote on communication, and there's a podcast episode about it as well.
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I've been invited to IFSS in Japan to give a talk on the podcast on the journey on communication as well.
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It was also a huge highlight.
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I never thought I will have, you know, this kind of opportunity to be invited to those most significant fire events in the world.
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I've received awards in Poland, I got Stefan Brewer Medal, which is a big distinction from the Association of Construction People, so it's a pretty huge thing in here and I'm very, very grateful.
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And internationally, sfp just gave me a fire safety engineering award in Europe.
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That's kind of awesome.
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Really I have not expected that and, of course, podcast has been a big part of both of these achievements.
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So, yeah, perhaps I can use word award winning.
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I'm not sure if I should.
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I don't want to brag too much and I'm not doing this for awards, I'm doing this because I love it.
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But anyway, I think there's still a huge value to celebrate those achievements and be happy with them.
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And I want to celebrate them with you because your involvement and you listening to Fire Science Show are the things that are pushing those strings forward and make me achieve those things.
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So thank you so much.
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Huge thanks to my wife, of course, who's the president, the CEO of Fire Science Media.
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So together she's been supporting me a lot in this journey.
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Huge thanks to the early adopters of the Fire Science Show.
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If you look into the guest of first let's say, 20, 25 episodes of the Fire Science Show, it was not popular back then.
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It was a big jump into the void when I were inviting people out of nowhere to participate in a very odd project and they said yes and they gave me some of the best interviews still.
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So very thankful to those and, of course, extremely thankful to OFR for their continued support.
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Anyway, it seems we got pretty far and if you look at the statistics ah right, statistics this is something that perhaps will interest you.
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Everyone likes talking about numbers, especially when numbers appear big, and we are about to hit 200,000 listens for the Fireside Show.
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I think this week we're gonna be at 195,000, and it grows by approximately 4,000 to 5,000 a month.
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So very soon we will break 200,000 downloads mark.
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This is tremendous.
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I've literally never considered that so many people will listen to the podcast.
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Actually, every time I release a new episode that's a question I sometimes get from my colleagues, like how many people do listen to the podcast, and every time I release a new episode, in the first week of this episode, they would usually get somewhere between four to five, six hundred listens.
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So if you compare it to Joe Rogan, it's probably nothing, but if you think about four or five hundred fire safety professionals listening to the voice of my guest in the episode, it feels amazing.
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It's perhaps one of the biggest keynotes you could have in the fire science space and we're delivering those every week to you.
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So I feel the scale that we've reached is respectable and is what I dreamt about this pathway to connect you with the top fire scientists just works and it appears it attracts a lot, a lot of fire engineers out there.
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And those 200 episodes of the Fire Science Show, 200 hours of discussing fire science.
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There's one more dimension to that.
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The amount of knowledge that has been shared in this podcast is literally mind-blowing.
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So if you take the transcript of the podcast episode and just paste it in Microsoft Word, you will quickly realize that every single podcast episode is something like 15 pages, 15-ish pages of manuscript, like literally 15 pages of text.
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So that means that the entire podcast database is like 3,000 pages of text right now.
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It's unbelievable how much knowledge people have shared through this medium.
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And it's there, and I know there are ways to tap into that knowledge.
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The library is growing, but it's definitely safe and sound and perhaps one day we'll figure out to do something with it, because it's just so much that people can learn from those episodes not only by listening.
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But perhaps one day we'll figure out a way how to turn this into some other ways, other pieces of content that people could enjoy.
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For the listener statistics.
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I'm not really spying on you, so I don't know that much, but at least I know the location where the episodes are downloaded.
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So we have downloads from over 170 countries across the world.
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The biggest part of the audience is UK with 21%, us with 17% and Australia with 10%.
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So big thanks to you guys.
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You are the half of the audience, which kind of makes sense because it's an English speaking podcast.
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There's a huge listenership in Germany and Sweden those are 4% of the audience.
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Poland, canada, denmark and New Zealand each make 3%.
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So the top 10 looks very, very good to me and I'm so happy that the fire science that we share is recognized internationally.
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From the funny things, I think I have one lesson in Vatican and I really hope it's the Pope.
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I'm not really sure, I'm not tracking that.
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There was one in Vatican, which also is quite funny.
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On the episodes themselves, the most popular episode is the first, fundamentals of Fire Science with Rory, and that's almost at 2,500 listens, 2,440 to be precise.
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That's an outstanding result.
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You love Rory and I love Rory and I need to bring Rory back to the podcast because you definitely expect that.
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Next on the list, also breaking 2,000 listens, is Gabriel vina with his episode on the nability criteria.
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That's one of the opening podcast episodes of the fire science show 2052 listens and shortly behind professor rain, now with also an opening episode.
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That was the first interview I've ever conducted for the fire science show with guillermo.
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He was extremely kind to take the invite.
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I've sent him the invite before I even had the podcast.
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It was a test by fire for me.
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I sent Guillermo an email that I'm starting a podcast.
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Would you like to give me an interview?
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He agreed and then I had to do the podcast so a way to make myself accountable and create this show for you.
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In podcasting, the first episodes are usually the most listened because a lot of people would listen to a recent episode and perhaps revisit the first few.
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So it's not a surprise that Gabriel and Guillermo are on the top of the list.
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But there are some later episodes which are very, very high.
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Number four is Danny Hopkins' episode on timber.
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That was episode 18 and it has 1,800 listens A very good episode and it was followed by many, many interesting episodes on timber and fire.
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I think we gave this topic a lot of consideration in the Fire Science Show and we will keep doing that.
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There's also episode 99 with Professor Sturm about electric vehicles 1,807 listens.
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Also like later episode, with such a vast number of listens.
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It just means the topics we've covered were very important to the science community.
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I'm also quite happy because there are two episodes of my own in the top 10.
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So I also make the cut.
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I also make the list, so you also like my episodes.
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That makes me very, very happy.
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And there are also some more in-depth statistics that I look into, like listener retention how long do you listen to the episodes, how many people revisit episodes?
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I probably won't go into details of those, but they also are very encouraging and allow me to really understand, looking at the statistical data, how do you consume the podcast, how do you like to consume the podcast, and what works, what does not work.
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I'm not always the best in implementing the findings of that, but at least I try to see what are your preferences and I also give you a chance to just state your preferences, which are in the survey which is in the show notes and which we will talk about in a short moment of time.
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So already I've mentioned that traveling across the world, I meet a lot of you and it's always a source of joy to me.
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It's actually very easy to invite me to a bureau and I appear quite friendly person.
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If you have an idea about myself, do I act and behave in real life compared to the podcast?
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I pretty behave like this.
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I'm really open and I love to chat with fellow enjoyers of fire safety engineering and fire scientists and people who just love doing fun things for the benefit of safety of others.
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So you are my people and I'm very happy to talk to you, but of course the traveling is limited, I am unable to meet all of you and there are things that a lot of people ask me and I guess this is something that is interesting to you and there's no way you can find out other than me telling you.
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So let me try and wrap up a few of questions that I heard rather frequently and let me wrap up what I usually told people who are asking.
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So a question that comes my way quite often is how much time it really takes to do this podcast.
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I mean, it's kind of obvious it's a weekly show.
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I know there are podcasts that are daily shows and those for me.
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Those people are absolutely crazy.
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But if a daily show is 15 minutes long, it's just an hour 45 minutes of content every week.
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I am here producing an hour of content every week anyway, so the jump is not actually that huge if you think about it.
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So yeah, it's kind of obvious it is a lot of work and yes, I agree it is.
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If you want a short answer with a number, I would say between 10 to 12 hours a week.
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The short answer with a number, I would say between 10 to 12 hours a week.
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I guess 10 hours a week would be a rough estimate of everything that it takes to produce this show on a weekly basis.
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I'm in quite a routine mode right now.
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You know I'm doing this for four years, so I have my systems, I have my routine.
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On some days I wake up and I do emails.
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On other days I do editing.
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On Wednesday I prep everything to set it up for release.
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This routine really helps manage this in a consistent basis.
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I'm also pretty bad at managing a big library of episodes to be uploaded, so it's more like a weekly thing to do.
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Out of the things that are necessary to produce a podcast episode, I would say it's three stages.
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One is general communication and prep, where you have to find the guest, you have to check out the guest, you have to prepare for the episode, you have to communicate with the cast, you have to synchronize the calendars, which perhaps sometimes is the most difficult, sometimes even impossible thing to do.
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Really With some guests we have to schedule for months ahead to have a podcast episode recording.
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For those recordings I also try to make it a convenient time for my guests, which means they end up very randomly in my calendar.
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They end up very randomly in my calendar.
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I've learned a lot about the concept of the time zones on this planet.
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Recording 5 am 6 am is pretty normal in my case.
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I often record 4 pm 5 pm, shortly after I end my work.
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I record in the evenings.
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I sometimes record in the middle of the night.
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I have weeks in which I do not have any recordings.
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I have weeks in which I have five of them.
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I had days where I had like three recordings, one by one, and I had guests meeting each other in the waiting room.
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That was quite fun but in the end scheduling is difficult.
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Getting them to happen is difficult, but once they happen they're pretty straightforward, quite fun and for the length they're recording themselves.
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It usually takes us one and a half up to two hours to record a podcast episode and we try to do it on one go.
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Usually the preparation time also differs from episode to episode.
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Some episodes I can just jump into the discussion if we talk smoke control or simulation that usually I don't have to prep that much.
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If I'm doing a solo episode, it sometimes takes a lot of time.
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This episode that I'm just recording took like three or four hours to prep, so that gives you an idea about how much it takes to record solo content as well.
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For some much harder episodes, especially if we're reviewing a report or a book or some specific paper, I take time to read the paper or the report, so it's also quite time-consuming.
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In general, I like to be prepared for the discussions I'm having, but not over-prepared, so I like to genuinely discover things while having the podcast episode.
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If I learn something in the episode, you can be sure that it's not faked.
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I really learn while doing this and, yeah, actually it's been quite beneficial for my own professional fire safety engineer career to learn that much.
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Matt Bonner once joked that the podcast is a secret scheme for me to become a good generalist fire engineer, and it actually is.
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I'm learning a lot and I'm very happy to take you on this learning journey with me.
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So once I have everything set up with the guests, I'm prepared for the episode.
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We come to the part where we can record the episode.
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They're usually done within one session and I usually do it remotely.
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I had the chance to record a few episodes in person, meeting with the guests and definitely those have better chemistry.
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It's much easier to have a good conversation when you're sitting across each other and the dynamic of those episodes is definitely different.
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So in the future I would love to make more of those.
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Of course it's not always possible.
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I saw some colleagues from other podcasts go to conferences and record a bunch of episodes on the conference and they think this could be a great idea.
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Perhaps I will use that, perhaps I will steal that idea and on the next conference I go to record a bunch of episodes ahead.
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Sounds like a good idea.
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But in general I record remotely.
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So my guest receives a link, we join together in a virtual room and we just record and it takes us an hour and a half, sometimes a little bit longer, to record an episode and then it's the boring part, the editing.
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So I probably spend an hour for every 15 minutes of the podcast.
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Maybe for 20 minutes of the podcast depends on the quality of the recording and how much stuff I have to do with it.
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I try to edit them so they sound good, so they don't annoy you.
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So my guests sound very well.
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I remove redundancies, I try to remove the ums and oms and you know just so the flow is better in the podcast episode.
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I hope it doesn't stand out as too artificial in the end as the product.
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I just like to polish them and it takes a lot of time.
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And then, once I have the podcast edited, I have to upload it to the BuzzFroad, which is the company that hosts the Farsighted show.
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So I upload them to BuzzFroad.
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In BuzzFroad I have to do the description of the podcast, I have to do the cover of the episode.
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I have to do the cover of the episode.
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I sometimes tweak the transcript a little bit, but that's not something I have time to do, so the transcripts are pretty much AI generated and I just have to live with those.
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And once all of this is done, the podcast is ready to release.
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I press the green button, release the episode on Wednesday morning and it goes all the way to the Spotify's Apple plays and eventually lands in your ear.
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So this is how the production looks like and it just.
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It's just a scheme that repeats and repeats, week after week after week, and I'm 204 weeks into that and it just, it just looks like that.
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Some people also ask me about editing, like are you editing yourself?
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I mean, most people hate editing videos and audio and they're also asking me about what I'm using to edit.
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So, as a disclaimer, I have been an amateur editor many, many years ago a very, very long time ago, before I was even dealing with fire.
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In my late high school years and early university days, I was very proficient at video editing, so I've edited short, let's say, music videos, sports videos.
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