Fun Episodes Recommendations Episodes
Jan. 8, 2025
183 - Innovation and fire safety with Vincent Brannigan
History repeats itself. A new thing is invented. We learn about it, understand it, and apply measures to capture its behaviour and regulate it. And then another new thing is invented. The measures we used start failing us, an...
Dec. 11, 2024
181 - Regulatory regimes with Vincent Brannigan
I just drove 500 km to have a conversation with Professor Vincent Brannigan from the University of Maryland, a very unique expert who combines law with fire engineering. In this discussion, we go into the complexities of buil...
Nov. 20, 2024
178 - Origin stories of fire prevention and firefighting with Michał Stachowicz
Happy 200th birthday, Scottish Fire and Rescue Services!!! I'm a bit late to the party. Still, I've done my best to celebrate your anniversary in the best way I can - by giving homage to the amazing fire safety engineering an...
Aug. 21, 2024
165 - Best Practice vs. Appropriate Practice with Arnold Dix
Is the "best practice" always the best approach to solving an engineering problem? Can we consider "best" and "appropriate" practices synonymous, and if not - how big is the gap between them? Join us as we welcome Professor A...
June 4, 2024
154 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 8 - Compartment Fire
Happy birthday, Fire Science Show! On the 3rd Anniversary of the podcast launch, I'm thrilled to deliver an episode on one of the most fascinating aspects of fire science - the compartment fire. Instead of going through the u...
May 22, 2024
153 - Fire Safety Engineer of the Future is a Great Communicator
A few weeks ago in Copenhagen, stepping onto the stage to open the SFPE Fire Safety Conference and Expo on Performance-Based Design, I took a bit of a gamble. I was invited to give an opening keynote, but instead of talking a...
April 2, 2024
146 - Take care of your mental health with Ann Jeffers
Depression and anxiety are on the rise in both academia and engineering consultancies. Everyone is constantly stressed and pushed to their limits. The system is built this way... And imagine that on top of the inadequate ment...
Nov. 24, 2023
129 - Backdraught and Underventilated Fires with Dr. Ricky Carvel
In today's episode, we go into the practical consequences of having an underventilated fire - that is the possibility of backdraught or other similar smoke explosion phenomena. My guest Dr Ricky Carvel from the University of ...
Nov. 21, 2023
128 - Fire Safety Engineering with Dr. Ricky Carvel
Dear friends of the Fire Science Show, and listeners of the Smart Passive Income Podcast - today is some sort of a special broadcast. As I have just been featured in THE podcast https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/shows/spi/ I...
Aug. 2, 2023
112 - Fire Safety for Energy Storage Systems with Ali Ashrafi and Paweł Woelke
Energy storage systems are vital systems in fuel transition and as a part of technology responding to the challenges of climate change. Not only for their capability to store energy but also for exploring strategies like peak...
May 24, 2023
102 - Fire Safe Design Competent Architect with Michael Woodrow
We all agree competencies are key to fire safety. We have discussed this. We have argued about this. We have come up with decent sets of core competencies, course curricula and numerous courses and modules that help us be com...
April 26, 2023
QA4 - Wojciech in Smart Firefighting podcast episode 151 - fire science, innovation and built environment
This week in place of a normal episode I would like to share an interview I gave to my friend Kevin Sofen in his podcast. In this episode I am interviewed by Kevin on the science of fire, how I understand the built environmen...
April 12, 2023
097 - Smoke toxicity (Part 2) Asphyxiants and irritants with David Purser
This episode is the 2nd part of interview with Professor David Purser, this year recipient of IAFSS'14 Emmons Plenary Lecture. If you have not seen it, I would highly encourage you to first listen to the Part 1 , which sets t...
April 5, 2023
096 - Smoke toxicity (Part 1) Why fires used to be less toxic in 1950's? with David Purser
I have to start with a word of warning, I am extremally hyped about this and upcoming episodes. I think for the first time I have recorded a podcast episode with a ratio of my commentary to the guest 1:5. This is because when...
March 22, 2023
094 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 5 - Compartment fires at NBS with James Quintiere
In the fifth episode of mini-series 'Experiments that changed fire science' we cover the compartment fire experimental campaigns carried at NBS (now NIST) in 1970's and 1980's, with the maybe most famous of them all - the Ste...
March 14, 2023
093 - The story of the golden era for the US fire science with James Quintiere
It's finally here, the episode many of you were waiting for! Discussing the history of US fire movement with prof. James Quintiere from the University of Maryland. I often wondered what it felt like in the 1970's and 80's whe...
Feb. 15, 2023
089 - Designing law by disasters (or not?) with Birgitte Messerschmidt
There is no universal answer to the question of how law and testing regimes should be set up. Sometimes, we build up our law after a huge tragedy, making sure that the same cause will not be of harm in the future. Sometimes, ...
Jan. 18, 2023
085 - E-mobility and energy storage hazards with Adam Barowy
Three months ago I saw a video of some sort of an electric scooter going off in someone's residential building. That person had absolutely no chance of controlling that fire. I guess they have escaped, but it must have been s...
Jan. 11, 2023
084 - Industry lead research with Steve Gwynne and Mike Spearpoint
In my first episode, I mentioned that I'm doing this podcast to preserve some amazing conversations and share them with a larger audience, as sometimes it is a huge waste of interesting thoughts that remain just between the f...
Jan. 4, 2023
083 - Fire fundamentals pt 1 - Combustion and flame with Rory Hadden
Let's start another mini-series! This time 'fire fundamentals' where we are going to learn some basics from the world's best. It is usually fascinating to do that! Not sure how you feel about it but I would kill for a chance ...
Dec. 21, 2022
081 - The origins of FDS with Kevin McGrattan
Has it ever crossed your mind how would our discipline look like, if we did not have Fire Dynamics Simulator? Maybe you had an opportunity to discuss CFD with colleagues from other disciplines, to find their faces in shock an...
Nov. 9, 2022
075 - Spacecraft fire safety with David Urban
Dear Terrestial Fire Engineers, let me take you on a journey that will make you experience fire engineering like nothing on our planet. Because in fact, it is the fire engineering of spacecraft for their operations in a zero-...
Aug. 24, 2022
064 - Heat stress in fires - from inside and outside with Denise Smith and Gavin Horn
This amount of heat flux for this amount of time, routine conditions, check, done. This is how I used to do my engineering and tenability assessment related to heat stress... up till today when prof Denisse Smith and prof Gav...
July 20, 2022
059 - Residential fire safety with Dan Madrzykowski and Charlie Fleischmann
How much the fire scene at households has changed over the last 30 years? Why modern furniture burns worse than one made with wood, cotton and other natural materials? And what does that mean to firefighting? What challenges ...