Oct. 29, 2025

224 - Navigating the complexities to change our field - a roundtable with Steve McGuirk and Brian Meacham

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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. For this podcast roundtable debate, I've invited Steve McGuirk, who represents Fire Sector Confederation, and Professor Brian Meacham from Crux, a lifelong contributor to understanding systems in fire safety.

The conversation starts with Grenfell as a case study in systemic breakdown, then stretches into the “fire chain” of policy, design, construction, occupation, incidents, investigation, and remediation. Along the way, we confront the half-life of crises, the overload of regulations, and the real-world trade-offs that shape housing, affordability, and risk.

We push beyond “add another rule” and ask better questions: How do incentives drive design decisions? Where does culture—of fire services, engineers, and politics—help or hinder outcomes? What would it take for standards bodies, professional institutions, and regulators to speak with a more unified voice? We explore convergence research as a practical method to break silos, inviting small, diverse teams to co-create solutions instead of defending old paradigms. From single-stair mid-rise housing to lithium-ion hazards, we dig into how to balance life safety, property protection, and community needs without freezing progress.

Technology shows up as both a tool and a trap. AI and modelling can map complexity and test scenarios, but they cannot replace critical thinking or ethics. We share grounded advice for practitioners: define the problem before you simulate, involve the right stakeholders early, make risk choices explicit, and design for how people actually behave. Competence, mentoring, and integrity are not nice-to-haves; they’re the core of public safety.

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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 - Welcome And Roundtable Setup

03:16 - Guests Introduced And Credentials

06:20 - Why Grenfell Still Matters

12:15 - Mapping The “Fire Chain” System

18:35 - Complexity, Regulation, And Half-Life Of Crises

24:40 - Socio-Technical Systems And AI’s Role

31:10 - Fundamentals Before Technology

36:50 - Trade-Offs: Safety, Housing, And Policy

43:20 - Convergence Research And Scaling Change

50:05 - Who Speaks For The Public?

56:20 - Culture, Competence, And Ethics

01:02:10 - Practical Advice For Engineers

01:05:25 - Closing Reflections And Next Steps

WEBVTT

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Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show.

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So I really like talking to people.

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It's kind of obvious I have a podcast, I like talking to people, but i I talking to people in a sense of not carrying an interview, which I also enjoy, but simply having a nice conversation with very interesting like minded people around about important topics in our discipline.

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Sometimes even uh topics that perhaps define the whole discipline or define the whole field in which we work with.

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I think field is the better word than discipline.

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And and uh in this first science show episode I've tried to bring a discussion like this.

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I thought we could make a little round table to which I've invited two two colleagues, and you are the fourth person at the table.

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And I would really love to drop some interesting thoughts about our profession on you and then hear back from you what do you think, what's your opinion on those important matters?

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And in this round table we are kind of discussing the complexities and how to navigate them.

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Why fire science is a science building complexities, why we need convergence in our research, how can we move forward and how to avoid some of the mistakes which I think are present on the way forward.

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I mean if we agree that we would like fire safety to improve and be better, how do we go to that ambitious goal?

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That's quite a big question.

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The talk was inspired by my exchange of uh messages with uh Steve McGuirk, who's here representing the fire sector confederation.

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And Steve is one of the longest serving fire chiefs in the UK.

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He's he's been a witness to the Grenfell Inquiry, and he's also strongly moved by the Grendfell tragedy and trying to understand why it happened and how we can introduce systematic changes to avoid such strategies in the future.

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And the second person invited to this podcast is Professor Brian Meacham, currently in Crux, known from his career at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the 2026 recipient of the Kowagoy Medal for lifetime contributions to fire science.

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That's one of the biggest achievements you can get in the production.

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So those two brilliant minds I've put into one room.

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I've talked with one, I've talked with another.

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I'm not sure they've ever talked much with each other.

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So it's a very genuine exchange of opinions and ideas.

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And I suppose this is an interesting conversation to be a part of.

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As it's not uh peer-reviewed science, this is not uh a lecture.

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Keep in mind all the opinions are of the participants in the discussion.

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This is really just an honest conversation between four professionals, uh, one of which is you, my dear listener.

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Okay, let's open the intro and jump into the episode.

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Welcome to the Fireside Show.

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My name is Vojcevinski, and I will be your host.

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with OFR Consultants, the UK's leading independent fire engineering consultancy.

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With a multi-award-winning team and offices across the country, OFR are experts in fire engineering committed to delivering preeminent expertise to protect people, property, and the planet.

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Start your journey with OFR and help shape the future of fire engineering.

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Hello everybody, I am joined today by two guests.

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Uh first, Brian Meacham from uh Crux, and also known from his long career at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

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Hey Brian.

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Hey Wojciech.

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And I like, okay, Steve, you have to wait, but I I cannot uh not stop for a second to congratulate you the Kawagoi Medal of the IFSS.

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Wow, Brian, fantastic achievement and very well deserved.

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Yeah, thank you very much.

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I'm I'm blown away.

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I mean, uh one never feels old enough to get a lifetime achievement award.

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But when I look at all the other people that have won the award, you know, Bud Nelson, who is a system safety guy who really started systems thinking and fire protection engineering in the US.

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And then you look at Heskistat, and you look at Beiler, and you look at all the people whose correlations we use every day, and it's like, man, you know, that's something else.

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But thank you very much.

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It's quite an honor.

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That that that's quite a club indeed.

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And my second guest, uh Steve McGuirk, uh one of the longest-serving FARC in the UK.

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Hey Steve.

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Hey, Wojciech, you're okay.

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And uh well done.

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Congratulations to Brian as well.

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Fantastic achievement.

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Um, gentlemen, we have uh a round table, uh a round triangle uh discussion on system safety.

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Great that you mentioned Bud Nelson and then the early work on system safety already.

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Uh Brian, perhaps to put our positions first, let's let's try to introduce ourselves of what do we do professionally so so the listeners know whose voices on this important aspect they're hearing.

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Steve, how about we we start with you?

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Yeah, sure.

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Well, Shek.

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So I I my predominant first stage of my career was as uh an operational firefighter and fire officer.

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I joined the fire service at 16 straight from school, and I was in it for just under 40 years, and I did nearly 17 of those as a chief officer, chief executive.

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So when I retired from fire, I I did other things from my life that had nothing to do with fire in in health and other sectors, but I kept a foot in the fire camp and and indeed was then asked to get involved as expert witness to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry, and I stayed with the choiry throughout its seven, just over seven years.

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And at the end of which I I suppose, I don't know, moved and inspired by by what I saw during the Grenfell Inquiry and the problems that I got involved with an organization that we've now, I'm as an executive director that we've now become a charity, the Fire Sector Confederation.

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And we'll talk about that, I'm sure, Walchip, but it was in that kind of context that you and I had a conversation and I started looking in more detail some of Brian's excellent work.

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Fantastic.

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Uh Brian, uh a three-liner on on your long career that's worth the Equagoi Award.

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Yeah, thanks, Wojciech.

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I don't know.

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Three-liner, I guess I've done a lot in my career.

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I was lucky to have, I guess, kind of a breadth of degrees: electrical engineering, fire protection engineering, and risk and public policy.

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So that, you know, kind of breadth gave me looking at systems and system complexity, fire safety, and the problem of vulnerable people in buildings, and then how policy works, you know, and how you should be thinking about risk and risk mitigation.

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And over 40 years, I've tried to merge those together to help myself think better about how to solve problems, but in the same time trying to help others think about looking at more joined up ways of doing that.

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So I guess I guess that's as short as I can do.

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Nice, nice, nice.

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Uh for for me, you're always the one who's pushing the performance-based engineering forward, for which I am greatly uh thankful because I, for myself, consider myself predominantly a performance-based fire safety engineer.

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I I do smoke control, I do simulations, I do evacuation calculations, I try to deliver those strategies on a real building based on engineer's judgment and engineering analysis, hopefully scientifically sound and based on uh principles and knowledge that we have as a scientific community.

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That's where I would position myself.

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So a user of that system and a stakeholder that that's closely tied to the industry Steve represents, which is the firefighting.

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So, where we're kind of like dealing with the same buildings, unfortunately, not talking enough to each other.

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And indeed, when you the first time brought up the concept of socio technical systems in fire safety, I remember like episode 20 of the podcast.

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I've listened to it like so many times.

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It's probably the podcast I've listened the most to, really, Brian.

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Because it it was one that I really resonated perhaps the most with, and and how if we don't account for the social systems, we just don't get the working way out.

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But anyway, um Steve, you triggered this.

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You sent me an email like you like you mentioned, uh with some concerns, and and we had a nice discussion and uh but perhaps let's let's uh make the listeners aware of your concerns that spring out of your uh Normus career and the Grenfell inquiry.

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Yeah, thanks for cheeks.

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I mean, I think I think Grenfell, whether it truly proved to be the watershed incident, however tragic it was, remains to be seen because there've been several so-called watershed incidents over the years in all countries, isn't there?

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I caught the half-life of a crisis.

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So you know, every year the half-life you know it dies off even quicker.

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It's like it's like radiate radiation, it it disappears really very quickly, and then over that period of time people almost forget as time passes on and the world moves on, and we'll come back to the speed of the world in a second.

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So you know, coming towards the end of Grenfell, it was absolutely staggering to me.

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Just well, two things.

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Firstly, just uh the behaviours of so many of the component parts of the landscape.

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You might use the word system, we'll come back to the word system, I'm sure.

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But every single component broke down, including the response of the Fire and Rescue Service, the London Fire Brigade.

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And I think that pulley was a bit that surprised most people because we've kind of taken for granted that the fire service will kind of rock up and do its job.

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And at Grenfell, that said not necessarily so.

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It turns out Grenfell wasn't the first occasion that had happened.

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And it struck me then I felt I needed to understand better why I really need to understand the why of these things.

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And uh that's why I got involved in the Confederation.

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And the goal of the Confederation was set about 10 years ago to try to join the sector together better, you know, bring speak with one voice.

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There's these kind of sort of twee expressions, isn't there?

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But you know, very noble causes.

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And I thought if that if there's ever a time to do it, it's kind of now real.

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Yeah.

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And so I started by sort of I I like to be a bit orderly myself, even though I'm not pure scientists, I still like orderliness in my life.

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So I built this little model, I called it fire chain, and I looked at the uh the NFP.

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I was it's the the eco, the life ecosystem, I think, Brian in the state, isn't it?

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Yeah, which is very, very high level.

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I felt it was too high level for what I needed.

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So I just broke down a kind of fire chain from at the one hand, at one end, policy and urban planning.

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Fire has been a curse and a blessing since we came out of the caves and continues to be so, doesn't it?

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And then through design approvals, so approval of design, people, competence to then construction, that's when things start to go wrong.

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This thing called value engineering starts to get brought into the equation, and then occupation, and that's when things really start to go wrong because people do weird and wonderful things in their day-to-day lives.

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So you will always have events, incidents, fires, which is the sixth link in the chain, for which there's then some kind of investigative legal process and then remediation recovery and the whole thing kind of starts again.

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And against that chain, I thought, well, I'll let me kind of figure out who are we trying to federate or what are we trying to federate them to do.

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That was a kind of first two questions to ask myself.

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And so I started just mapping out organizations against one or more links of the chain, and then I started thinking, why would they do that?

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And then in the UK, and it's true across the world, uh, I thought that there'll be a lot of regulatory and legal drivers.

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I've got to be honest, I was I'd underestimated how many regulatory and legal drivers.

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We'll come back like that.

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So I just started literally mapping these things out in some kind of brainstorming session, I guess.

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The first H90 comp uh organisation, I didn't even go to companies, it's just institutions.

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You know, they got the way firing the titles, haven't they?

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NFPA off FPA off, fire chiefs or uh fire industry associated.

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They've all got firing the titles somewhere.

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But then I go into organizations like architects, the Royal Institute of Chartered Architects, uh architectural technicians, and then I started into all kinds of weirdo, wonderful organizations.

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In the UK, there's an organization called the Institute of Architectural Iron Mongers, which in the first instance didn't look directly relevant, but every single door closing device, door handle, hinge, and every piece of door furniture, including vision panels, for every single fighter in this country and many abroad, are all made by a member of the Institute of Architectural Iron Mongers.

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And that was a kind of kaching moment for me where I realized, oh my goodness, we haven't got a thing called a sector at all.

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What we've got is this complex system of multiple players driven by, and then I'd study on, they've done a lot of work on the legislation.

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I got to 389 separate pieces of legislation or regulators, just the UK, by the way, that would drive people from the fire safety point of view.

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A guy, I pinned some work from a guy, he called it a web of same.

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He actually crowdsourced that this kind of information, and oh my god, we've got this unbelievable complex tapestry of organizations playing a part in one or more link to the chain.

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And we've got a massive legislation, a web of a tapestry of regulation, and somewhere or other, therefore, we've got to try and bring this together, and that's when I really kind of got into some study about complex adaptive systems and what what they might mean and why that's important.

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And that and that's really where I came across.

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Uh, and this is what you and I were chatting about, wasn't it, World Chick?

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And this is where you said you saying like Brian, the two of you must kind of come together.

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Um, so yeah, that that was the kind of background as to what as to why I thought this would be a useful conversation.

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Yeah, when I first heard like the catchphrase you would like the sector to work together, that for me was um this guy's gonna have a bad time.

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But then when you when you started positioning this as a system analysis, I thought, well, maybe I I have someone to talk with.

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So Brian, like from your perspective, this is awfully a lot of uh uh awfully similar to a lot of things that you you're mentioning from from a your perspective, I think.

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Yeah, and you know, it's a little bit sad that you know we keep having to learn lessons over and over again.

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And you know, I like you know what Steve said early on, the half-life of events, and I've used that term myself.

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You know, I think the half-life of an event is about six months at best, even if it's as horrendous as the Grenfell Tower Fire or 9-11 was in the US.

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Everybody gets up in arms and wants to do something, and then something else happens, and the politicians move on, and the trickle-down effect that everybody else moves on.

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In that period where you have that event, you get the knee-jerk reactions, you get regulations piled on, you get other things that are changed.

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Nobody takes a beat to actually sit and think about what's happening with the system, what actually went wrong.

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Who are the people that could actually make a difference if you map out the system and just start talking rather than start doing?

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Because if you're doing something and you don't know where it's going to end up, more than likely it's not gonna help the system, it's just gonna add to it.

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So, you know, life is a set of challenges that all work together in this web.

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And the building design construction process is no different.

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If we're not talking to each other, how everything influences each other, we're not going to be able to solve problems that impact everybody.

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So it's just, you know, it amazes me how so many actors want to be insular and kind of do their own thing and not think about their role and what I think is their actual commitment to society by doing the right thing within this bigger system.

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So, yeah, a lot of what Steve talked about resonates a lot with me.

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And, you know, hopefully maybe now we're doubled or tripled in in thinking this way.

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We'll start the ball rolling to get some more people thinking in this direction.

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At the same time, I think this mysterious system is also so complicated, and also we are all so close to it, it's it is very difficult to see the bigger picture.

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And you have to take a lot of sessions of zooming out from the picture to really start seeing those branched connections.

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Because I would never thought there is an institute or of architects who are doing the handles and door locking devices.

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But then once you point it out, obviously they are like there's a set of rules for electrical engines which power your water pump and your phone, and there will be a different set of rules uh for whatever else the device or or thing you put into your building, which seemingly might not be connected with fire safety, but in the end it is.

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So, and I mean, Steve, you used like a powerful statement, we should all try to confederate and move the system together, but at the same time, I wonder if moving forward for every part of the system means the same thing.

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Because in my head, I see you know an expanding universe picture where everyone moves forward and just gets further away from each other, you know, like galaxies flying away from each other as the space expands.

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And I'm not sure if that's a good uh definition of the direction we should be going forward.

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What do you think?

00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:13.039
No, I I I completely agree.

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It's really complex, it's it's it's not just systems, it's complexity as well, isn't it?

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You you have to see the two things together because they are codependent.

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There's a guy called um he he passed away not too many years ago.

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He's called Peter Ho.

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He was the head of the civil service of Singapore.

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I don't know if you ever came across Peter Brian.

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Some of his lectures are on YouTube, absolutely really crystal clear thinking.

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And he talks about how Singapore transformed from essentially a you know a swamp to you know one of the world's leading powerhouses and you know, fantastic transformation of a country.

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And part of that is buying into some some important issues.

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One, the world is getting is actually getting faster and more complex.

00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:00.400
Have you ever come across the expression the Anthropocene age?

00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:23.039
Uh, which is that, yeah, so because of this, which is technology, transportation, etc., if you look at all this kind of the multiple indicators, they call it the great acceleration, from the numbers of McDonald's to rising sea temperature, you know, millions of these all signal the same thing, you know, exponential growth from about the 1950s onwards.

00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:39.599
And his point is that that speeding up, if you add it to that the technology and the transportation, it has made the world connected now in ways that's never been connected anytime before in human history, which at the one level makes it more complex.

00:19:39.599 --> 00:19:50.160
What it also means is that you then have to think, as Brian just made the point there, in a whole system way, the the interaction and interrelationship between one bit and another.

00:19:50.160 --> 00:20:00.880
But to your point, Wolcheck, the problem with that is it becomes mind-blowing in terms of it's it becomes beyond us as individuals to then comprehend that.

00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:06.000
If you start to describe it, you sort of you know, you you just run out of space on a big wall, don't you?

00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:06.240
Really?

00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:09.839
You end up with these kind of viral and neural networks.

00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:15.039
So actually, then what you then need to kind of come back to is two things.

00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:16.720
One, simplicity.

00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:20.880
What you've then got the answer is people, isn't it?

00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:51.119
The answer is to get that like-minded people who can broadly agree on the phenomenon of complexity and and why it matters, not to dive too deeply into it, but there's a way of doing that, but to keep up at the higher level and to kind of navigate, negotiate, and in the end, it will be much more about collaboration and agreement because there's a shared sort of set of ideas that are in in the best interest of the public.

00:20:51.119 --> 00:21:09.039
And the final thing I'll just say on that is I'm more hopeful now though, of making sense of the complexity because of AI, and because what's coming through AI, kind of quantum computing, etc., is is an opportunity if we can if we can collectively get our acts.

00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:10.799
I mean, these things are always overhyped.

00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:16.240
It's if you know we're not two, we're not two minutes away from the you know, kind of the Terminator world, are we?

00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:18.559
But we're not 30 years away either.

00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:47.839
And and I I do think by connecting at this stage, there is a real opportunity to figure out as a kind of fire safety community how we might collectively share knowledge and intelligence that we've never shared before in ways that we can then kind of liberate AI and quantum to help us come up with solutions faster, more comprehensive, that do take into account some of the systems' implications that are beyond our kind of grasp as human beings.

00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:49.599
I don't know whether you'd agree with that, Ryan.

00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:52.160
Yeah, you know, feel free to disagree.

00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:54.160
That makes uh podcast more interesting.

00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:55.440
Come on, disagree, guys.

00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:58.720
I'll I'll just drop something for for you, Ryan, before you answer.

00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:11.039
But even if we agree that uh there could be a superintelligence that will help us get the most perfect and fundamentally sound answer to all of our problems, which likely is number 42.

00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:15.920
But anyway, if we have found the answer, yet stakeholders would have to accept.

00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:18.960
You would have people to accept, yes, this is the answer.

00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:26.000
You would have say everyone, yes, this answer is the best one, and it's to the best of my interest and it aligns with my goals perfectly.

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:27.440
So we all move together.

00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:29.119
And I don't think it would be possible.

00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:37.279
Like even if we have the best answer, to have the best answer and have uh the overall actors in the system to agree on that answer.

00:22:37.279 --> 00:22:39.359
I don't think that's a reasonably physical.

00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:47.680
That's exactly why I love the Brian's way of thinking so much, with having the social technical system and an impact on that social part in it.

00:22:47.920 --> 00:23:00.000
Yeah, I mean, there's uh obviously a lot packed in here in the expanding universe and the complexity and the uh Skynet taking over and and and all the rest.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:21.359
I guess you know, I'd start a little bit with with AI, just from the perspective that I think as a society, we're not individually and collectively thinking enough on how things work, and we're looking more and more for computers and AI to do our thinking and learning for us, right?

00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:43.440
So it's a little bit of a challenge that if we're not honing our own critical thinking skills and our social skills, not our social media skills, but our social skills, then we're not going to be able to engage in a way with the technology, with other people, with institutions in a way that's actually going to be productive.

00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:52.319
So we have to get the people side of the equation involved in understanding, you know, what do we need collectively as a society?

00:23:52.319 --> 00:24:02.640
What do we need to do to train AI to be helpful to us and not to be going in a direction that we don't know how to check?

00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:14.400
So, you know, the socio technical system for me, whether it's at the smallest level of, you know, how do you design a smartphone to be more intuitive to the user?

00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:17.839
It's the user, it's the technology, and it's the system.

00:24:17.839 --> 00:24:24.240
I mean, designers of technology take those concepts into play every day.

00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:26.880
We should be doing that in fire safety.

00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:29.680
In some areas we do, in other areas we don't.

00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:41.759
I still think we're not doing a good enough job around how do we notify people in a building in the event of a fire that they actually get information that they can use in a way they understand, right?

00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:48.880
This is not rocket science, but that's a socio-technical system design that we don't have a handle on.

00:24:48.880 --> 00:25:17.200
And as you go up in complexity and scale to these complex buildings with complex technologies that require complex fire modeling, that you you know, great technology in these CFD tools, and then an engineer goes and picks a single design fire or a single set of conditions and forgets to flip the switch from the default fuel of propane when that's not even the fuel burning in the building.

00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:21.119
So you don't know the impact on the people and on and on and on.

00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:30.160
If we can't critically look at problems, think our way out of a wet paper bag, then no technology is going to save us.

00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:46.640
We have to figure out how we're together raising our game, and we're having emergent thoughts on how to do things better along with the emerging technology and build our institutions to facilitate those interactions.

00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:50.559
We keep forgetting the institutional side, the regulations.

00:25:50.559 --> 00:25:55.440
We don't need 600, 300, 1000 regulations on fire safety.

00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.400
You can go back to the fire safety concepts tree.

00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:01.440
You can prevent fire ignition or manage the fire.

00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:07.359
Managing the fire is controlling the fire spread or controlling the people, right?

00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:12.240
There's some pretty simple concepts that we seem to forget about as we throw technology.

00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:28.240
So for me, it's pulling back a little bit, getting universities to actually teach engineering and not modeling, so you know how to think about a problem, then you know how to talk to people, and then you can start building those networks, which I think we all need.

00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:36.240
So just to push back on that, I suppose your point, I'm not portraying this lovely happy, slappy world where everybody's that all the problems are solved, it's never gonna happen, is it?

00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:37.440
Because several reasons.

00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:44.319
But Brian's point is absolutely bang on there, that you know, AI only takes you so far, there's still a lot of basic problems that we haven't got sorted out yet.

00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:52.240
So and what where I think it becomes powerful though, is we haven't we there's a lot of new problems, we haven't even invented next year's problems yet.

00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:54.640
Who'd heard a lithium iron 20 years ago?

00:26:54.640 --> 00:27:03.279
I mean, maybe guys in the scientific community knew what it was, but most of us on the street had never even heard of lithium iron 20 years ago.

00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:07.839
You know, so tomorrow's fire problems haven't even been invented yet.

00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:10.640
So there'll never be a shortage of new problems coming down.

00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:20.400
So I suppose your point, you'll listen to watch that you feel like there's a fixed set of problems, and you might be right, it's taken us so long to try and figure them out, and we haven't yet, that once we do that.

00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:28.640
It it I'm talking about a need to get the arrangements in place for stuff we haven't even figured out is gonna get invented yet.

00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:47.200
And then the other thing we'll we'll never run out of reality, and reality is you're not gonna stop politicians regulating, or you're not gonna stop politicians being politicians, and they are gonna react to the mood of the public as it suits their political purposes.

00:27:47.200 --> 00:27:52.000
You know, whether that's you know, look at the kind of for example, you know, gun crime in the states.

00:27:52.000 --> 00:28:01.680
There's you could come up with lots and lots and lots of logic and argument, it's a terrible issue, but there's too many powerful lobbies to change fundamentally some of that situation.

00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:05.279
However tragic and emotionally engaged people can be.

00:28:05.279 --> 00:28:12.160
Same as true as fire, people can get really kind of you know, understandably emotionally engaged, but politicians are going to politic.

00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:22.960
People are gonna try and make money, people are still gonna kind of cut corners because they have been doing since we came out of the caves, and they won't will do for so long as we're all around.

00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:42.240
So all I'm talking about, Warcheck, is being able to share some of that knowledge intelligence, as much as anything, an observatory, I guess, to understand better what's going on and what it might mean, and maybe just avoiding reinventing reinventing wheels on multiple occasions.

00:28:42.240 --> 00:28:49.279
I was kind of doing this work and I hadn't even heard of Brian, and I've been in this community, well, I'd heard of Brian, but we're not really engaged.

00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:56.160
But I'd been in this fire rescue community at a quite senior level in the UK for the best part of 20, 30 years.

00:28:56.160 --> 00:29:07.759
I spoke at the Fire Chiefs Conference in America, and yet Brian and I, so we haven't exactly cracked this connective situation yet, even with all the social media and everything else.

00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:13.759
So I think we've still got a lot of progress to be made before worrying whether we're being too idealistic about things.

00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:19.440
I I don't want to put it into your mind that you said that AI will solve everything.

00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:20.400
I that that's not the thing.

00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:30.480
I agree that uh you know, using advanced tools to understand this extreme complexity, like 389 organizations uh acting on the same system is way too much for me to comprehend.

00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:32.559
I'll I'll probably shut down at 17.

00:29:32.559 --> 00:29:41.839
But what I also think is that why I fundamentally agree with you that it would be great if everyone went the same direction.

00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:48.960
And I think there would be a common agreement that we would all like a more fire safe world together.

00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:56.799
Like I think it's it's something that everyone working in this or or in a relationship with this industry would sign up to.

00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:59.920
No one wants a riskier world or less fire safe.

00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:03.680
safe world unless or maybe or maybe someone does.

00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:04.559
I don't know.

00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:07.680
Then perhaps let's I shouldn't go to this question, maybe.

00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:16.319
But anyway, I I think from what you have said, I I really like one thing because you mentioned a shared set of ideas makes those stakeholders work together.

00:30:16.319 --> 00:30:21.279
And I was thinking about this like a shared set of do we even have a shared set of ideas.

00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:23.200
And is one set enough?

00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:25.039
That's another question that I would raise.

00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:34.160
Because I think at different levels those different stakeholder groups will form a larger group and they work with another larger group.

00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:37.519
You know politicians versus designers versus firefighters.

00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:40.480
I would say this is a pretty high level distribution.

00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:48.640
And then you go into design, you have MEP, you have architectural structural seismic those people start to get more and more into silos.

00:30:48.640 --> 00:31:04.000
And I think at different branches if we could map that landscape, perhaps we need to find a you know a set of rules, a set short set of rules that at the level of each branch would give them a really strong connection about how they work.

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:10.880
And if we have that maybe we would be able to find the interdisciplinary connections between the branches that work.

00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:15.440
And in here, as Brian says people are are are very important.

00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:22.319
I mean if I wanted to work on the future solution I think I would be looking in that possibility of finding shared set of rules.

00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:23.599
What do you think Brian?

00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:26.960
Yeah I think that's an interesting idea.

00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:40.000
I think it's important and I think it's you know also one of these goals that's really difficult because we we might say in the fire safety arena we have a shared set of goals but I think they can be different.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:32:09.759
And as you move up the chain, you know I'll go in reverse is you know you start in the building design project you have sustainability engineers who are trying to build in photovoltaics and energy storage systems and they're not talking to the fire safety engineers who are trying to stop the fire from happening and neither one of them are talking to the structural engineer who's going to have to keep the building up when the the battery energy storage system starts fire and causes a problem on the system.

00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:29.599
And then when you go above that you have all the thousands of standards that go into the regulations and you have planning regulation and building regulation and fire prevention regulation that don't talk to each other and sitting on top are the you know the ministers and the politicians who are just going with which way the wind's blowing.

00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:34.160
So trying to find a shared ideal you know is is tough.

00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:45.920
You know most people you know and and you know I know I'll I'll get in trouble with certain sectors in the US most reasonable people would understand we're going through climate change and we have to do something.

00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:55.839
But you talk about a fundamental that you would think everyone could understand and want to get around and figure out how you move forward we can't do that.

00:32:55.839 --> 00:32:59.599
You know we can't get around poverty we can't get around safety.

00:32:59.599 --> 00:33:06.240
So you know even if we get into fire safety what does what does fire safety shared ideal look like?

00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:07.680
Is it public safety?

00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:09.279
Is it property protection?

00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:22.400
I mean the insurance company said who doesn't want risk the insurance company lives on risk as long as they can predict it they're making money right so what that shared ideal is you know I think needs a little bit of discussion.

00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:25.680
I I don't I also think you've not got to get too ambitious.

00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:32.160
I think I I'm a bit believed being a pragmatist and realistic in life you know where where I kind of came from this was Grenfell.

00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:41.519
The cladding in this case should never been on the building and the systems that allowed that from the lack of knowledge of people in the building control.

00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:47.839
Fixing some of those basics and avoiding another Grenfell would be really good.

00:33:47.839 --> 00:33:57.599
Now that doesn't mean to say there might not be something worse than Grenfell as a consequence of the next thing that we don't fully understand yet.

00:33:57.599 --> 00:34:11.840
But I I I believe if ultimately we've truly learned how all this kind of complexity fit it together and how we might navigate that better going forward, then the chances of something quite as catastrophic have reduced.

00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:27.920
Now again the engineers and the mathematicians would somehow like to compute that but if you either accept complexity and adaptivity and emergent systems and the kind of it's you know the natural examples of things like the kind of murmurations aren't they?

00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:55.840
You know, which direction is a murmuration of starlings going to go in well good question isn't it so you are you either accept that's how the world is or you come to accept it or you're looking for some orderliness or you're looking for some rules and and I think that's a crosswalls that we're in my belief is we're in the murmuration world and any attempt to try and control which way the flock is birds are going to go is folly because they're going to go anyway.

00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:01.920
Yeah but but but do you say we need to reduce the complexity or we have to acknowledge complexity?

00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:02.880
We can't reduce it.

00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:05.440
It's only going to go one way it's impossible.

00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:14.880
It's a bit like saying do I wish it wasn't going to rain tomorrow it's personally my the evidence suggests to me well well complimentary that it's only it's only going one way and that's more.

00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:31.599
Well yeah I mean complexity has always been there and it's always going to be there and it's something that we have to deal with and it's going to increase I think as our capacity to understand and create new technology and everything else increases.

00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:45.679
But you know I I would rewind just a little bit back to the point that Steve was saying around Grenfell right pick that one event you shouldn't have had that cladding you know building control should have done different there should have been other things.

00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:57.920
Okay the government went in there was a report there were a lot of inquiries there's a new system is the new system actually doing anything to address the problems that were fundamental to Grenfell?

00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:08.559
Or has it just introduced new complexities and more paperwork and no more actual focus on solving the root problem.

00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:25.599
Well and to add to that equation essentially a house building or home building is is dried up in this country because the rules and regulation is now pressing down because of all the Grenfell outcomes of essentially just kind of a stalled building.

00:36:25.599 --> 00:36:35.360
So our current government had a target to build one and a half million new homes and for that to happen they need to build about 3000 homes a year just in London.

00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:42.960
I think so far this year there's been about five or six hundred well if it's a very very very low number of homes started.

00:36:42.960 --> 00:37:13.599
And so the only question about the socio technical systems Brian it is tragic that 72 people died but if you've got 2000 people who can't get a home can't get a job what are the what are the implications just because you can't see those you can't easily track the consequences of people not having a home not being able to get a new job all those things the social impact of the consequence it's not in one place and it won't be have an inquiry about it then it doesn't mean that they're not there.

00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:18.880
You're absolutely right and therefore all of this is a series of trade-offs.

00:37:19.039 --> 00:37:37.280
Yeah and and I think you know it's it should be what we're doing it should be starting with a conversation right because I think housing affordability the needs of the occupants of a building you know whether it's financial safety community whatever don't come into the equation.

00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:59.039
So none of that got into what I see as a regulatory change following Grenfell, which means you're exacerbating the problem by trying to solve it with technology and gateways of bureaucratic oversight rather than critical thinking and getting the right people together to solve a problem.

00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:05.599
There's a relatively new kind of approach to research called convergence research.

00:38:05.599 --> 00:38:55.199
It's really what we should have been doing all along but it tries to define itself differently from multidisciplinary research in the fact that you should walk into this with people who are open to learn and see what emerges from discussion rather than having a bunch of people with their own pet theories come in and try to apply them to a problem and divvy up funding to different silos, which is what happens in any major you know research or problem solving instead get a half a dozen people who are open to really challenging each other, letting the thoughts emerge developing new theories developing new systems and let that convergence approach take form where the ideas emerge in the complexity and you work to a solution.

00:38:55.199 --> 00:39:10.960
And you know we have the same problem in the US with housing so you know the rest of the world will think this is strange but you know we basically don't allow multifamily residential buildings to be built with a single stair above three levels.

00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:11.440
Right?

00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:20.079
There's some countries Sweden you can go up to 16 levels by the prescriptive code and only if it's above 16 levels do you even have to do engineering.

00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:49.039
So now there's a big debate just around housing if you're doing smaller floor plate floors you know up to six or seven stories why not a single exit so I'm fortunate to be involved in a project that's doing that for one of our states here taking kind of a risk and systems approach and they get it it's it's awesome to have a regulator stakeholders and others when you sit and start talking about well what really are these range of social issues?

00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:50.880
What is the fire safety issues?

00:39:50.880 --> 00:39:53.679
What really are the fire service challenges?

00:39:53.679 --> 00:39:55.440
How do you balance these?

00:39:55.440 --> 00:40:05.280
What are our significant risk reduction measures versus ones that just have worked into the code and don't do much how can we do something?

00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:18.239
So when you get the right mix of people you can have some really good discussions and it's back to opening statements get people together and actually start talking about how we can do this better.

00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:45.360
What you said about the convergence research that that sounds awfully a lot like Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science because I I might be wrong but I I believe he said that the paradigm can be changed by someone who's outside of the specific field because the people within the field are already so embedded in the existing paradigm it's very hard for them to shift their way of thinking and an outsider is capable of completely shifting the paradigm so so that that's very in line.

00:40:45.599 --> 00:41:33.360
I wonder the last thing you said about working uh at small how do we translate that into a global uh solutions of safety do you think the global shift comes from uh some of those smaller enterprises or this can be scaled up to provide a global solution if such an if such solution exists well I think it's certainly scalable I think the efforts like you know Steve has done in in putting together a coalition or a federation to work with a diversity of stakeholders there's another you know UK-based federation the International Fire Safety Standards Coalition that Gary Strong at Rick Scott started and you know I work with them and actually be at the UN ECE meeting next week where we're trying to promote a decade of action for fire safety.

00:41:33.360 --> 00:42:11.360
I mean you can get a small group try to get enough capacity and and influence to make a difference but I'm also working with a social scientist just trying to explore these ideas of convergence and bringing vulnerability in the into the engineering picture so every individual can start by themselves who are they talking to who are they working with how do you expand your your network to think of new ideas then you take these coalitions and get people going and you start to build up but yeah you have to scale it or you're not going to get anywhere.

00:42:11.360 --> 00:42:23.519
But you have to have people like Steve and yourself to that that say it's worth pulling this together and pulling these people together and trying something and then go from there one step at a time.

00:42:24.719 --> 00:43:07.280
I think your podcasts are really you perhaps more significant than you might realize actually because in in the world that we're now in there's literally not as well four or five podcasts in the fire in the fire world really and and various guests move move around well there are certain common guests that do many of them and there's some unusual guests so if you listen to them it is surprising it sounds like it's this incredibly big global community but it's actually not is it so Gary Strong is connected with our organisation as well you know Luke Bisbeck you know some of the there's probably 20 people in the in the US that you you you off the top of your head Brian you'd say there's sort of shakers and shapers.

00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:13.440
In in fire service thinking you've got four or five of these guys who do the small tactical stuff.

00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:23.039
I I don't think we're decades away against what I think technology can help it's mapping some of this out and creating communities of interest.

00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:36.000
You know if you just said you know 300 years ago we'll have this thing called the United Nations and um you know or it's League of Nations whatever his predecessor was you you have going to take a slightly longer term view of some of these things.

00:43:36.000 --> 00:44:51.280
It it it can take a little bit of time and um you know I I kind of see us on that journey but actually I think it's accelerating because people like you all check you you were Brian you go a bit so you brought this connection so people who listen to this and Brian and I will follow it up and then somebody who did and again you're making all these kind of sort of neural connections at some point in time we'll have a conference of some description that you know what would be really useful I don't think the technology is quite there just yet but but a bit like kind of Brian just mentioned that convergence research there'll be something comes along in a few times some kind of converge we never used teams until COVID had we now we can't use that John you do this I I think we just need to chill out about getting you know start with getting people connected start by completely agree getting conversations and trying to be open about them start by realizing there's a lot of science and engineering but actually it does come back to people being prepared to take a risk and trust each other and work together and then I suppose trusting because the world is advancing there'll be some technology comes along in a few years' time that makes it easier to have a few more sort of slightly tighter goals maybe but then it'll move again and by it'll move again by then.

00:44:51.280 --> 00:45:02.719
So I personally think the best that's possible is really being really well connected and being able to think in a different way because you've been exposed to different people's way of thinking and that's that's a good thing.

00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:03.679
Yeah.

00:45:03.679 --> 00:45:42.960
One thing that that kind of worries me in this this approach if we have uh a group of people working doing their best out of goodwill actually they may end up with conclusions which are not really compatible with each other you know like and and I I think this uh in the end this causes a lot of issues on on the end because eventually like you perhaps have to choose like there's a reason why certain countries are sprinkler countries and mine is not well there must be reason I don't understand it why my country is not a sprinkler country but but it's not a sprinkler country and in a perfect world this would be settled down.

00:45:42.960 --> 00:46:52.079
Okay this technology is gives you this this technology gives you that but no there are strong opinions uh perhaps lobbying is a word to be used a lot of groups will have different interests so I really worry that can we moving up higher and higher on this ladder of systems going to larger systems like are we still able to you know preserve this one voice or or one idea or alternatively what do we have to do to proceed with such a complexity on on the back so we don't like you know create more more problems as we as we rise we have a few different ideas here that I I think it's you know helpful maybe to step back a little bit and sort out you know so fundamentally I think fire safety challenges are straightforward to address right you have the fire tetrahedron you have the fire safety concepts tree so you know fire fundamentals and the technologies are going to change and to Steve's point we would be good to know what's coming down the road to get ahead of the fire problem because we should be able to know how to diagnose it.

00:46:52.239 --> 00:47:08.239
We know how to do design in buildings we know how the fire service could work but partly you know systems approaches like the fire safety concepts tree say you can have different solutions that work to meet a fire safety objective.

00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:17.199
So you can design a building that's safe without sprinklers and you can design a different building that is safe enough with sprinklers.

00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:20.400
Part of that discussion is how safe is safe enough?

00:47:20.400 --> 00:48:11.599
What is the risk tolerance level within the within the country or within you know the the political sphere because ultimately politicians and courts are making decisions on risk acceptability even more than people and I think what we're talking about a little bit is how do you get the voice of the people who are impacted along with the voice of the regulators who are trying to respond to ministers to reach some acceptable level to work with engineers to get a good handle on keeping fire impacts to a reasonable level all at the same time that every actor has financial pressures that they're they're working with right you know a simple the three variable systems of equation to solve you know should have been done hundred years ago.

00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:13.440
Should have been done.

00:48:13.440 --> 00:48:25.760
Well uh I mean do we even have a like okay you say the voice of people who are impacted but does such a voice exist or does it have to stand up or or formulate somewhere?

00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:34.400
Because I mean is it the politicians I don't think politicians are speaking the voice of people impacted perhaps sometimes they are but I would not say at grand scheme.

00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:36.000
Is it firefighters?

00:48:36.000 --> 00:49:06.719
I would love to believe that fire like in Poland a lot of the discussion they're brought into the systems uh into the development of law and everything and they are representing the society let's say but very often they are representing like the firefighters needs because they only have that many firetrucks and they don't want to deal with a hazard this big perhaps so it's I I'm not sure if that's the voice of the of the people impacted it's it's a voice of of the Federation uh which they represent so does this voice even exist?

00:49:07.039 --> 00:49:16.000
I think to be fair Walche it's kind of like I I know I know what you mean by we've we all kind of look down our nose a little bit of politicians and it's it's understandable why.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:20.000
And the truly democracy is not a very very efficient system is it?

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:23.920
It might feel morally correct one but it's not a very efficient one.

00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:28.800
There are some autocrats run very efficient bus services and building system as well don't they?

00:49:28.800 --> 00:49:40.000
I I get I think it comes back to this point about about realism the the fact is most people spend almost no unless you're in the fire community almost no time at all thinking about fire.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:50:42.960
Your assumption as a citizen is that that the state whichever state you're in most cases the state will keep you safe it is a it is a fun you know I when um when our Prime Minister was apologizing uh on the day the the final report from Grempell was published he made he made a point that people have got a a right to expect that it is a function of the apparatus of civil government that you will keep people safe safe from harm and a key part of that harm is fire but there are other ones as well aren't there increasingly climate change the effects and and so I suppose that that it keeps coming back to the circular problem if you're not careful World check as new issues come along the list of harms gets bigger and where fire sits as a priority in amongst all of those others is actually I think whether we like it we don't like it fundamentally a political decision making process because politicians are elected in most countries and therefore they're the best proxy we've got for that public participation.

00:50:42.960 --> 00:51:18.239
I mean from our point of view that's why one of the things we're trying to do with the with the confederation is we work very close with an I think on an all-party parliamentary group so trying to connect with politicians from a cluster but with both our houses of cross all party and that's why we become a charity trying to get conversations that are in the public interest trying if we can to get as far away from partisan interest whether it's commercial political or whatever in order to have constructive conversations that take us a a step forward there is no Superman one bound and we're free.

00:51:18.400 --> 00:52:01.840
The best we're going to achieve is a series of positive steps and then we might have to go in that direction and it will be a constant sort of zigzag journey and I think that unless you're comfortable in a world of uncertainty where there isn't closure, there isn't an end state, I think you're gonna spend a lot of your life uncomfortable going back to my own thought about who's who's the voice I would also love to believe organizations in which I participate you know all the SFPs and IFSSs of the world that they to a large extent represent uh that voice through the goodwill of of engineers who are who are chartered in those organizations because I truly believe the engineers want to do good fire engineering and they want to do it on the benefit of those who could be impacted.

00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:29.840
Do you think a voice exists Brian again I'm not sure that there's a single voice right and and because there's not a single stakeholder and there's there's SFPE and then there's the institution of fire engineers and each has a certain claim of engineering but really IFE is predominantly fire service you know and the engineering chartered engineers component is much smaller than SFPE.

00:52:29.840 --> 00:53:20.880
Why they don't work together is beyond me because the message should be the same then you have all the fire protections you have FPA you have NFPA you have CFPA etc why isn't CFPA the Confederation of fire protections associations out there being a global voice you barely hear about them or at least I barely hear about them in the US right so everybody's pushing their own it's like get off of this thing where you have to do it yourself right you know there are groups but get those groups together that's another area where you know we can you know make a difference if the like groups can start talking to each other then you start to get more common voices and fewer groups that you then have to talk to to move forward.

00:53:20.880 --> 00:53:35.679
So I think you know we it would be nice to push those organizations but they also have financial incentives and bureaucrats have a responsibility to the people but how they interpret that varies quite a bit.

00:53:35.679 --> 00:53:50.559
But I think there's groups like you know Kindling who are out there trying to make a difference in predominantly low resource areas low and middle income countries who are trying to give voice to people who don't have them.

00:53:50.559 --> 00:54:05.119
You know and I did some work with Kindling in the US on the invisible US fire problem right so it's up to us to give voice to people because we have positions that people in our industry will listen to.

00:54:05.119 --> 00:54:15.280
If we're not out there advocating for those people who are actually trying to give voice to the problem then you know we're not part of the solution either.

00:54:15.280 --> 00:54:24.000
So I would like to expect some of these bigger organizations would be more involved but I don't think it fits their financial model.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:31.119
So my view is I do work for the World Bank I do work for the Asian Development Bank I do work with Kindling.

00:54:31.119 --> 00:54:45.360
I'm gonna take whatever voice I have and try to help people you know and help the discussion and I think you know the more we can do things like that those in a position to do that give voice to the people who don't have it.

00:54:45.679 --> 00:54:55.519
Yeah that that that's what I meant exactly with the saying that different groups organizations even if they work in goodwill they can come to different conclusions that are not necessarily compatible.

00:54:55.760 --> 00:56:40.559
And I I think having this shared set of ideas at the level of the organizations at which they could at least agree that we like our you know our work all together should lead to this this and this if we at least agree uh like what should be the goal and we perhaps can together maybe you know push a little bit on the higher level to make our agenda possible and then as you go down there will be more and more ways to to to design you know a sprinkler building or unsprinkler building one with a single staircase or one with five and the there most likely are ways to to have um uh the the same level of safety and comfort the other feature that you booked and there's kind of we're not talking about it but in there there's a lot of culture isn't there cult culture with a big C and a big the small C as well I mean I was smiling there all the chat because that is a classic I mean it's a fire science podcast isn't it a classic engineer train of thought a kind of linear you know people don't do that do you draw it's Bish Bash Bosch there's the master you've only got two choices that or that whereas the kind of politician the social sciences you know that's it well how long is that how long is that cone going to be how long do you want it to be and is it a cone to start off with I was so you know within every bit of the world there's the kind of big cultural piece is the between nation states and their view of regulation or what have you or what's what's an acceptable level of risk and what have you but even within our professions the different pieces of professions there are huge kind of cultural divisions and this belief also and I've even that sort of shared beliefs I'm not so sure they're as common as we might think the the idea that if you produce enough evidence and a strong argument then that that will win the day.

00:56:40.559 --> 00:58:04.239
I mean I I remember we put um when I was in chief of Greater Manchester we put cold cutting technology you know the kind of you punch through the door the wall you inject a mist you drop the temperature the science is irrefutable it's absolutely fantastic you know hardly any water so these things have hardly taken off in the state so they're not I've done that far in America but I was convinced being in Sweden I was convinced this was the future firefighting so we put it on every every appliance and I and I kept pushing it as the fire chief once I'd gone it's kind of like Robinson never gets you but it it's certainly not being adopted as custom and practice because culturally firefighters still like to feel brave they like to kick down doors there there is a kind of set of cultural norms and the and a way they see themselves and the same will be true of engineers and planners and builders so it I suppose it kind of reinforces the point it's a it is really complicated and complex and difficult stuff and the answer if there isn't there isn't an answer there's improvements and we can get better but only by by keeping people coming together in networked collaborative consensual ways and constantly accepting that's going to change you know don't fix on one thing that's okay for a couple of years chill out minors change it again be being much more flexible about approaches I think is is part of this as well.

00:58:04.239 --> 00:58:05.119
That's a good one.

00:58:05.360 --> 00:58:20.800
Yeah I mean I would jump on that and say we need to be not only flexible we need to be open to new ideas and and thinking you know which in part is being flexible but it's also you know something we're not used to.

00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:47.039
You know we see things engineers as you say like to think linearly complex problems are more feedback loops and emergence and convergence rather than than linearity and we need to do more to reach out to voices we're not hearing because we we all have this problem of you know I've done this for 40 years I must know what I'm doing.

00:58:47.039 --> 00:58:55.920
Who are you to tell me anything different if we can't get away from that then we're not going to have a good opportunity to go forward.

00:58:55.920 --> 00:59:27.440
And another aspect that I keep droning on here but competency and ethics I think we have to do a better job of really understanding what it means to be competent in each of the areas what we should expect from educational institutions in putting people into the workforce what we should expect from the workforce in in training and mentoring and guiding people forward and how the different parts of the market should work with each other.

00:59:27.440 --> 00:59:33.679
If you're just going to follow the low bid and work to the bottom what good is an engineering degree?

00:59:33.679 --> 00:59:39.440
I'm sorry you're not following your professional ethics to put public safety first.

00:59:39.440 --> 00:59:50.800
You need to make business you need to have you know an economic viability but you have to do it in a way that you know you're not making bad decisions for financial reasons.

00:59:50.800 --> 00:59:57.280
So let's get this ethics competency quality issue out front and center as well.

00:59:57.679 --> 01:00:04.960
I fully agree and and Steve also brought That very early in the discussion when he mentioned value engineering, I wrote it down because it's an important term.

01:00:04.960 --> 01:00:12.079
And uh very often the discussion about safety is replaced by you know monetary discussion, profits and everything.

01:00:12.079 --> 01:00:13.440
Which is expected.

01:00:13.440 --> 01:00:14.400
It's business.

01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:16.559
People make their livings out of that.

01:00:16.559 --> 01:00:21.519
There's someone waiting for a new boat to be delivered, they have to have something to pay for the new boat.

01:00:21.519 --> 01:00:25.119
And last thing I would like to raise in the in the podcast, really.

01:00:25.119 --> 01:00:32.880
So there's a bunch of engineers listening to us, you know, and this is a high-level discussion of what we would need to change in the world to live in a better place.

01:00:32.880 --> 01:00:37.280
And it appears discussions and and and people's connections are key.

01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:46.400
But perhaps like if you if you would have to tell a fire safety engineer who's today working on a project, like where do they start changing this cultural shift?

01:00:46.400 --> 01:00:49.039
How do they how do they how do they start thinking?

01:00:49.039 --> 01:01:01.599
I I I can start to make it easier, but I think I think for me important is to listen to objectives of others and understand that the predominant main role of buildings is not to be safe.

01:01:01.599 --> 01:01:08.880
They have like all other reasons they are built, and to be safe is just a feature that connects with all of those.

01:01:08.880 --> 01:01:23.199
So I would love to buildings to be you know aesthetic, beautiful, functional, energy efficient, good to the environment, provide excellent internal indoor climate, and by the way, be fire safe on the way.

01:01:23.199 --> 01:01:26.239
If we can achieve that, I'm I'm happy as a fire engineer.

01:01:26.239 --> 01:01:34.639
But to do that, you have to be very open and listen what other branches are doing, because they rarely do things out of stupidity.

01:01:34.639 --> 01:01:40.239
They usually have a reason for every decision, and that decision necessarily has to be fire safe.

01:01:40.239 --> 01:01:43.199
So you have to understand the reason to provide the solution.

01:01:43.199 --> 01:01:46.079
That's just one thing that always comes back to my mind.

01:01:46.079 --> 01:01:48.719
Brian, you want to take the next one, final statements?

01:01:49.039 --> 01:02:00.000
Yeah, I guess what I would say, if I'm trying to keep it relatively short, is especially for young engineers, you know, modeling is not engineering.

01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:01.920
Modeling is a tool.

01:02:01.920 --> 01:02:21.840
Take a little time to critically think about the problem that you're trying to solve, make sure it's the right problem you're trying to solve, get the right inputs, like you said, from a variety of people involved in the project to know what the building should be doing and make good fire safety decisions.

01:02:21.840 --> 01:02:25.599

224 - Navigating the complexities to change our field - a roundtable with Steve McGuirk and Brian Meacham

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