Fire Science, Engineering And Education Episodes

The current hot-topics in fire science and engineering
Nov. 2, 2022

074 - Engineering not magic, intumescent coatings with Andrea Lucherini

Intumescent coatings are not magic. They are a product of amazing engineering, a theatre of thermophysical properties that create an insulative layer that sometimes is the only thing holding fire from destroying a structure. ...
Oct. 26, 2022

073 - Smoke control in shopping malls - uncommon aspects that make or break the system

Long before I started the podcast, my bread and butter was to find clever ways to remove smoke from shopping malls. Actually, I like to believe I was pretty good at the job, given the fact some of the biggest projects in East...
Oct. 19, 2022

072 - Extracting the secret of IMFSE from Bart Merci and Eulalia Planas

Many creators will not agree, but in some cases, copying is the highest form of admiration. And there are things in Fire Safety Engineering that are more than worthy of being copied. One of them is the famous International Ma...
Oct. 5, 2022

070 - Fire resistance is whatever you want it to be with Piotr Turkowski

Today we talk fire resistance, but unlike you have ever heard. Join me and Dr Piotr Turkowski - two fire laboratory professionals in an honest discussion about their craft. The challenges in standardization and committee work...
Sept. 28, 2022

069 - Challenging fires at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) with Michael Gollner

Why so many researchers are spending their time tackling fire issues at the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)? What is so challenging about this? We always lived near nature, why today this emerges as one of the 'hottest' topics...
Aug. 2, 2022

061 - Glazing in fire with Yu Wang

The relation between ventilation conditions and fire severity is quite a fundamental one. You don't even have to be a fire safety engineer to realize that more air means a bigger fire. But how does air get into the compartmen...
July 13, 2022

058 - Animal pyrocognition - a path to undestand our beginnings with fire with Ivo Jacobs

Have you wondered how fire science started? But I mean the real real start... not 1666 one, nor the one when we've started to build furnaces... The start when the first evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens figured out this w...
July 6, 2022

057 - Structural fire engineering with Thomas Gernay

The subject of structural fire engineering was long overdue in the podcast schedule. But once I finally got it on my agenda, I made sure to interview one of the very best there are - prof Thomas Gernay of John Hopkins Univer...
June 29, 2022

056 - Performance Based Fire Protection Engineer with David Stacy

How does being a volunteer firefighter improve your abilities to do Performance-Based Design (PBD) and how your knowledge in PBD may translate to firefighting? That is not a question you can ask to every fire protection engin...
June 8, 2022

053 - The number one skill to thrive as an FSE I've learnt in 1 year of podcasting

It has been one year since I started this show. I've promised you that we will learn Fire Safety Engineering together, and today comes a great time to reflect on some lessons learnt. In this episode, I will take you on a shor...
May 18, 2022

051 - Fire Science in eyes of a firefighter with Szymon Kokot

In this show, we often discuss how fire science can help firefighters. Today we drop the UNO reverse card and figure out what firefighters actually need from fire science. And for that, I've got a perfect person to talk to - ...
April 12, 2022

046 - Fire Code Tech crossover with Gus Gagliardi

This week we do something funny - a crossover episode with the host of the Fire Code Tech podcast - Gus Gagliardi. We end up discussing the paths of fire safety engineers, from school to specialized roles in engineering compa...
April 6, 2022

045 - Foundations of fire safety with Ruben van Coile and Danny Hopkin

How does one decide when a building is fire safe? That is a real hell of a question to answer! Is it when no harm can occur? But such a condition can never be fulfilled... there is always a meteor waiting around the corner to...
March 23, 2022

043 - Some neglected areas in fire science with Vyto Babrauskas

It is always a pleasure to interview a true legend of fire safety. And when the topic of the interview is their thoughts on neglected areas of our discipline, based on almost five decades of experience? This must end up great...
March 16, 2022

042 - Unsafe environment of post fire scenes with Gavin Horn

We all understand the dangers of smoke inhalation in fires. But what about the site of the fire a few days after it was put out? It looks clean, maybe even lost the smell... Is it something to worry about, or you can rush str...
March 9, 2022

041 - Sprinkler and safety systems reliability with Arnstein Fedoy

How reliable are sprinkler systems? Is it 100%? Is it 95%? Maybe it is 88%... actually, whatever the number is, do we truly understand what does it represent? What does it mean that a sprinkler has succeeded and what does it ...
Dec. 15, 2021

031 - Suppressing tunnel fires with water mist with Johny Jessen

Can water mist be used in tunnels? I wondered that for a long time, and with every tunnel project, many questions around this issue were piling in my head. When dealing with large infrastructure projects you really need to wo...
Dec. 1, 2021

029 -Busses, flammability and an unknown force holding good solutions back... with Anja Hofmann-Böllinghaus

This is not a fun episode. It starts with a tragedy, that fueled a whole field of research. Continues into disbelief, that one aspect of fire safety can be at the same chosen as the sole foundation of fire safety within a bra...
Nov. 3, 2021

025 - Structural fire engineering with engineered timber with Felix Wiesner

In Episode 18 we have touched on the important topic of fire performance of engineered wood and its wide use in the modern built environment. Today, we follow up on this subject with Dr Felix Wiesner from the University of Q...
Oct. 27, 2021

024 - Who's a Fire Safety Engineer with Jimmy Jönsson

Who is a Fire Safety Engineer? And when do you become one? How do you know the person on the other side of the table at the project meeting has the necessary competencies to judge fire safety solutions of a building you desig...
Oct. 13, 2021

022 - Combustion, fluid mechanics and fire safety engineering with Michael Gollner

https://firelab.berkeley.edu/ this is the place you need to go! Ignition at different slope angles. Firebrand spotting. Fire whirls. What does connect these various fire phenomena? They are all driven by fluid dynamics and ca...
Sept. 29, 2021

020 - Fire Safety Engineering as a socio-technical system with Brian Meacham

Do you sometimes feel that fire safety engineering is not making a footprint as it should? With all our knowledge, models, technology...why do huge fires exist? Why fire is such a threat to billions of humans? In today's epis...
Sept. 21, 2021

019 - Modelling human behaviour in wildfire evacuation with Erica Kuligowski

There is plenty of fire engineers who think they are modelling human behaviour... Some claim they can do it... And there is very, very few who actually did and succeeded with it. One of them is today's guest, Dr Erica Kuligow...
Sept. 15, 2021

018 - Engineered timber with Danny Hopkin

Engineered timber is on a trajectory to become the construction material of the future. However, on that pathway there stands the fire issue. Wood burns, it is inevitable. This is something we must accept, and learn to work a...