Episodes

You don’t always need a furnace to end up with a fire resistance rating, but you do need to understand what kind of “proof” you’re actually creating. I’m joined again by Dr. Piotr Turkowski from ITB to unpack calculation meth...

In this episode of fire fundamentals with the ITB fire resistance expert Piotr Turkowski we break down what a fire resistance rating criteria, and what the letters behind ratings like “REI 60” exactly stand for. We use lab ex...

plume_rise_1.fds from the FDS Validation Guide (by NIST) &HEAD CHID='plume_rise_1', TITLE='Test plume rise height in stable atmosphere' / &MESH IJK=50,52,50, XB=-50.,50.,-52.,52.,0.,100., MULT_ID='mesh1' / &MULT ID='mesh1', DZ=100., K_UPPER=1 / &MESH IJK=50,52,50, XB= 50.,250.,-104.…

When one takes a decision to evacuate and starts moving, this is not the end of their decision-making process. Which route to take? Who to contact? How to arrange a place of shelter? Where to go first? Have I forgotten anythi...

A fire in an informal settlement is not just another small building fire. It can be the first domino in a fast-moving neighborhood event, and the little details like the wall material, roof material, door location, even a lig...

Being a part of broader civil engineering and built environment sciences, we have the unique opportunity to learn from other "sister" disciplines, rather than coming up with everything on our own. Especially, when those disci...

Is it too late to start with the AI in 2026? It wen't so far, does it still make sense to get interested in this technology? Absolutely. Today we sit down with MZ Naser of Clemson University to map a clear, useful path for engineers who want results without the hype. We start with the basics - clea…

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 -...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...