Episodes

240 - Distressed by the AI stuff around
Feb. 25, 2026

240 - Distressed by the AI stuff around

I’m not stressed by AI itself. I’m stressed by the insatiable greed of those who profit from it, even if it means sacrificing large parts of the population. I'm also stressed about how ruthlessly it can be abused to cause del...
239 - Assessing post-fire structural damage in tunnels with Negar Elhami-Khorasani
Feb. 18, 2026

239 - Assessing post-fire structural damage in tunnels with Negar Elhami-Khorasani

A tunnel can ride out a fire without collapsing (or even critical visible structural damage), but a question whether it is safe for operations, and what is its long-term residual fire resistance remains. With repair bills bei...
238 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 19 - Defining fires in your models
Feb. 11, 2026

238 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 19 - Defining fires in your models

Welcome to another fire fundamentals episode! Today we dig into how to place a fire in a model so results reflect real physics. From plume inputs to FDS burners, we show where HRRPUA, radiative fraction, and D* make or break ...
237 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 18 - Explosions with Ali Rangwala and Lorenz Boeck
Feb. 4, 2026

237 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 18 - Explosions with Ali Rangwala and Lorenz Boeck

Welcome back to Fire Fundamentals! Today with prof. Ali Rangwala from WPI and dr Lorenz Boeck from Rembe and WPI we take the world of explosion protection engineering. In this episode we touch: • distinguishing fires and expl...
236 - Fitting an efficient smoke control system in a confined space
Jan. 28, 2026

236 - Fitting an efficient smoke control system in a confined space

A tight, historic cellar. Arched ceilings. Long corridors. Tiny shafts. We faced a design wall: to keep routes tenable, we needed twice the extraction that the building could carry. At that point, I've failed as an engineer -...
235 - A Repeating Tragedy with Lazaros Filippidis
Jan. 21, 2026

235 - A Repeating Tragedy with Lazaros Filippidis

A fire in a public venue happened again. No, I am not talking about the one in Switzerland. Since the tragic New Year celebration, we had one more near-miss in Madrid on Jan 10th 2026... In fact, who knows how many we actuall...
234 - Building a fire safety culture with George Boustras
Jan. 14, 2026

234 - Building a fire safety culture with George Boustras

Today we sit down with safety science leader George Boustras - a professor at European University Cyprus, UNESCO Chair in Disaster Risk Reduction and Societal Safety in South East Mediterranean and founder of Centre of Excell...
233 - Safety as a moving target with Danielle Antonelis
Jan. 6, 2026

233 - Safety as a moving target with Danielle Antonelis

Fires in informal settlements and humanitarian settings rarely make headlines, but they define daily life for millions. We sit down with Kindling founder Danielle Antonelis to trace a four-year arc from the non-profits early ...
232 - 2025 Wrap up episode - How fires turn into catastrophies
Dec. 31, 2025

232 - 2025 Wrap up episode - How fires turn into catastrophies

Catastrophes don’t happen because of one bad decision; they happen when many small assumptions fail at the same time. I take this opportunity to talk about my thoughts related to the Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong. I attemp...
Merry Christmas everyone!
Dec. 24, 2025

Merry Christmas everyone!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you Merry Christmas, a great time with your families, a bit of rest and time to reflect, and an awesome 2026 to come! If you are desperate for fire science on Christmas Eve, check...
231 - BESS explosion prevention and mitigation with Lorenz Boeck and Nick Bartlett
Dec. 17, 2025

231 - BESS explosion prevention and mitigation with Lorenz Boeck and Nick Bartlett

Today we cover another branch of safety of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), that is explosion prevention in mitigation. I always thought you can either end with a fire or with an explosion, and boy I was wrong... but we...
230 - Wind driven conflagration experiments with Faraz Hedayati
Dec. 9, 2025

230 - Wind driven conflagration experiments with Faraz Hedayati

A facility with 105 synchronized fans pushing hurricane-class wind across a full-size house while a live fire... This is not science fiction - this is a real research capacity that helps us re-shape our knowledge on the full ...
229 - Learning from 900 fires with Björn Maiworm
Dec. 3, 2025

229 - Learning from 900 fires with Björn Maiworm

What can you learn after processing observations across 900 severe fires? A lot. Actually, I will send you to the paper straight away: Evaluating 900 Potentially Harming Fires in Germany: Is the Prescriptive Building Code Eff...
228 - Quantifying the expected utility of fire tests with Andrea Franchini
Nov. 26, 2025

228 - Quantifying the expected utility of fire tests with Andrea Franchini

What do you expect from running a fire test? I would hope that it improves my state of knowledge. But do they do this? We often pursue them blindly, but it seems there is a way to do this in an informed way. In this episode w...
227 - The differences between EV and ICEV fires in car parks
Nov. 19, 2025

227 - The differences between EV and ICEV fires in car parks

A viral clip of an EV igniting was what started my worries about safety in car parks I have been designing. Are we ready for fast growing fires? Since 2019 I've learned and studied a lot, I've relaxed on some aspects of it an...
226 - New Swiss fire safety code with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki
Nov. 12, 2025

226 - New Swiss fire safety code with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki

It is a massive effort to rewrite a national fire safety code around measurable risk, explicit targets, and cost-effectiveness. But sometimes, there are great reasons to do so. In this episode, together with Gianluca De Sanct...
225 - Battery Energy Storage Systems with Noah Ryder
Nov. 4, 2025

225 - Battery Energy Storage Systems with Noah Ryder

Demand for the energy storage is as high as ever, and is about to triple-quadruple. The development of technology is at unprecedented phase, and even within a single project you may face different cell, battery or container g...
224 - Navigating the complexities to change our field - a roundtable with Steve McGuirk and Brian Meacham
Oct. 29, 2025

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

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 insti...
223 - Heat-induced delamination in CLT with Antonela Čolić
Oct. 21, 2025

223 - Heat-induced delamination in CLT with Antonela Čolić

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we invite dr. Antonela Čolić from the OFR Consultants, to break down the performance of adhesives used in CLT in fire, what differences between the glues are observable at the microsca...
222 - Integrating WUI risk management and fire safety engineering with Pascale Vacca
Oct. 15, 2025

222 - Integrating WUI risk management and fire safety engineering with Pascale Vacca

In this episode we try to demonstrate another step in integrating fire engineering into WUI risk management, and vice versa. These two areas together form some sort of fire engineering method, which I strongly believe will be...
221 - Fire experiments at the ISS (SoFIE-MIST) with Michael Gollner
Oct. 8, 2025

221 - Fire experiments at the ISS (SoFIE-MIST) with Michael Gollner

Fire doesn’t play by Earth’s rules once you leave gravity behind. In this deep dive with Professor Michael Gollner, we unpack what the recent experiments at the ISS called SoFIE-MIST taught us about solid fuel flammability in...
220 - Test vs experiment with David Morrisset
Oct. 1, 2025

220 - Test vs experiment with David Morrisset

In this episode we dive into the ap between standardized tests and experiments, trying to figure out (a) is there a difference and (b) if there is, could not understanding the difference quietly erode safety. With guest David...
219 - Giving back with the SFPE Foundation - with Leslie Marshall
Sept. 24, 2025

219 - Giving back with the SFPE Foundation - with Leslie Marshall

In this episode, we give focus to the SFPE Foundation – a catalyst transforming how fire engineering research is funded, conducted, and shared globally. In this conversation with Leslie Marshall, Interim Executive Director of...
218 - Fire decay and cooling phases with Andrea Lucherini
Sept. 16, 2025

218 - Fire decay and cooling phases with Andrea Lucherini

What happens when the flames die down? It's a question rarely addressed in fire engineering, yet the decay and cooling phases of fires can be more dangerous than peak fire conditions. In this deep-dive conversation with Dr. Andrea Lucherini from Frisbee at ZAG in Slovenia, we uncover why these over…