Episodes
Aug. 20, 2025
215 - Lessons from the 2018 Camp Fire with Eric D. Link
The devastating 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California serves as a haunting reminder of how rapidly wildfires can overwhelm communities. We have not known anything like it - the flames raced through Paradise at four miles per...
Aug. 13, 2025
214 - Thermal Imagers with Martin Veit
The world looks entirely different through a thermal camera lens, especially in a fire scenario. These devices reveal harsh temperature gradients between hot and cold surfaces, adding another dimension to how fire safety prof...
Aug. 6, 2025
213 - Setting up your own chatbot with Ruggiero Lovreglio and Amir Rafe
The AI revolution has arrived, but fire safety engineers face a critical dilemma: how to leverage powerful AI tools while protecting confidential project data. Professor Ruggiero Rino Lovreglio from Massey University and Dr. ...
July 30, 2025
212 - A glossary for evacuation with Enrico Ronchi and Ezel Üsten
When experts from different disciplines attempt to collaborate on complex problems, such as evacuation modelling, we often discover that we're not speaking the same language. Even seemingly simple terms like "density," "veloc...
July 23, 2025
211 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 17 - Detecting fires
In episode 17 of the Fire Fundamentals, we delve into the fire detection technology. Fire detection forms the critical foundation of all active fire protection measures, serving as the prerequisite for any fire safety enginee...
July 15, 2025
210 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 16 - Turbulence with Randy McDermott
In the 16th part of the Fire Fundamentals series, we invite Randy McDermott from NIST to join us for a deep dive into turbulence and its critical role in fire dynamics modelling. We explore the physics behind turbulent combus...
July 9, 2025
209 - Updates from the SFPE with Chris Jelenewicz
In this podcast episode, I invited Chris Jelenewicz, the CEO of SFPE, to bring me up to date on the society. The SFPE Handbook on Fire Protection Engineering is undergoing a major revision with the sixth edition expected by s...
July 2, 2025
208 - The basics of fire water supply with Szymon Kokot
Water might seem like the simplest part of firefighting – just point and spray, right? Well, as you can imagine, the reality is a bit more complex. In this conversation with veteran firefighter and CFBT instructor Szymon Koko...
June 25, 2025
207 - Fire Safety of Balconies with Mike Spearpoint and Konstantinos Chotzoglou
As a consequence of the Grenfell Tower disaster, some strong legislation was proposed, such as a combustible ban on building walls. This, however, affected more than just the building facades, as it excluded materials such as...
June 17, 2025
206 - Fire Engineering Infrastructural Projects with Mukesh Tomar
Today I'm taking you for a sightseeing trip to see what fire safety looks like beyond our usual office, residential buildings and car parks. Fire engineering takes on an entirely different dimension when applied to massive infrastructure projects where conventional building codes provide minimal gu…
June 11, 2025
205 - FDS maintenance and development with Randy McDermott
Dr Randy McDermott takes us behind the scenes of fire science's most critical software tool in this conversation about the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) developed at NIST. As one of the developers, Randy offers valuable insights into how this essential modelling tool is maintained, improved, and ada…
June 3, 2025
204 - 4th Birthday of the Podcast. Some stories about the past and the future
Four years ago, what began as a mission to preserve valuable fire safety engineering conversations has grown into a fairly large platform connecting professionals across 170+ countries. The journey to 200 episodes and nearly ...
May 28, 2025
203 - The lessons from repeating Jin's experiment on visibility in smoke
I've finally done it. We've repeated Jin's experiment! I thought I knew-it-all about that experiment, but boy... knowing and doing it are two different things. I can say, I've finally cleared my mind on some thoughts after th...
May 21, 2025
202 - Designing fire safety with firefighters in mind
The gap between fire safety engineering and firefighting operations creates a profound challenge that affects building safety worldwide. Even experienced fire safety engineers - myself included - face uncertainty when designi...
May 13, 2025
201 - The last fire - a novel set in industrial fire engineering with Joaquim Casal
What happens when a lifetime of studying industrial fire hazards meets the creative mind of a novelist? In this conversation with Professor Joaquim Casal, we explore the unique intersection of fire safety engineering and scie...
May 6, 2025
200 - Façade flammability across scales and standards with Guillermo Rein and Matt Bonner
Episode 200! And for this special episode, I've travelled to London to interview Prof. Guillermo Rein and Dr Matt Bonner on a piece of research carried out at Imperial College London, with the experiments performed in our laboratory at the ITB. In this episode, we discuss the concept of flammabilit…
April 29, 2025
199 - Commercial Timber Guidebook with Danny Hopkin and Luis Gonzalez Avila
We know a whole lot more about mass timber in fire than we did a few years ago (even when I’ve just started the podcast 199 episodes back …). But is this knowledge widely used in engineering practice? Is it used in the same w...
April 23, 2025
198 - Waste and recycling fires and how to fight them with Ryan Fogelman
The devastating impact of waste and recycling industry fires costs approximately $2.5 billion annually in the US and Canada alone, with lithium-ion batteries causing roughly 50% of these incidents. In this episode with Ryan F...
April 15, 2025
197 - Fire spread through external walls pt. 2 with FSRI
When wildfire threatens neighbourhoods with closely-spaced homes, what determines whether flames leap from one structure to the next? The FSRI research team - Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn - joi...
April 9, 2025
196 - Fire spread through external walls pt. 1 with FSRI
In this podcast episode, we host Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn, all from the FSRI, to cover their recent experimental research on fire spread through external walls. This is part 1 of the interv...
April 2, 2025
195 - Fire Safety Cases with Chris Mayfield and Martyn Ramsden
The UK's Building Safety Act requires high-risk buildings to maintain comprehensive fire safety cases - living documents that identify hazards, mitigate risks, and establish clear accountability for building safety. This is t...
March 26, 2025
194 - Playing with batteries with Xinyan Huang
Professor Xinyan Huang from Hong Kong Polytechnic University shares his expertise on battery fires and the various experimental methods researchers use to trigger thermal runaway events under controlled conditions. • Terminol...
March 18, 2025
193 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 15 - Extinguishing systems with Bogdan Racięga
Welcome to another Fire Fundamentals. This time the episode is focused on various extinguishing technologies. Invited guest - Bogdan Racięga, Director at Baltic Fire Laboratory and expert in fire protection systems breaks dow...
March 12, 2025
192 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 14 - Jet fan systems for car parks
Jet-fan systems effectively control smoke in car parks by creating directed airflows that transport smoke from one point to another, similar to how longitudinal ventilation works in tunnels. These systems offer cost-effective...