Episodes

094 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 5 - Compartment fires at NBS with James Quintiere

March 22, 2023

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 St…

093 - The story of the golden era for the US fire science with James Quintiere

March 14, 2023

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 wh…

Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling Fire Science, Engineering And Education

092 - European Commission view on Performance Based FSE with Adamantia Athanasopoulou

March 7, 2023

It seems we will not have EU Fire Code for at least a few more decades... Why is that? Because the people in power found out that it is not the most efficient thing to do it right now. And they found it through the power of …

Fire Science Fundamentals

091 - Fire fundamentals pt 2 - Ignition with Rory Hadden

Feb. 28, 2023

Welcome to Fire Fundamentals pt. 2 with Rory Hadden. This episode is focused on the concept of ignition and its role in fire safety - as an event leading to fires, as something often investigated post-fire, but also as a veh…

QA3 - Some Polish experiences with a year of war in Ukraine (interviewed by Arnold Dix)

Feb. 24, 2023

1 year. This is insane the war is still going on and people are still hurt. This war in Ukraine significantly affected everyone in here, and in this episode, I get a chance to share some of my thoughts and background to the …

Car Parks And Tunnels Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling

090 - Objective driven suppression system for Swedish tunnels with Ulf Lundström

Feb. 22, 2023

If you want to design a suppression system for a certain application, you have a lot of technical solutions to choose from and most likely a handful of codes to follow. It seems pretty straightforward for most applications, …

Fun Episodes Recommendations Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling Sustainable Future And Burning Issues

089 - Designing law by disasters (or not?) with Birgitte Messerschmidt

Feb. 15, 2023

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,…

Wildfires, WUI And Wind

088 - Modeling fires of natural fuels with Eric Mueller

Feb. 8, 2023

Modelling ignition and fire of a tree branch with some leaves can't be that much different from modelling burning timber, right? Well, that is the kind of ignorance that can backfire on you... It certainly did on me! I have …

Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling Structural Fire Engineering

087 - Structural FSE inspired by earthquake engineering with Negar Elhami Khorasani

Feb. 1, 2023

Performance-based engineering or the use of probabilistic methods in building design are not inventions of Fire Safety Engineering. But we sometimes tend to act like we need to 'discover' and work out everything on our own. …

Experiments That Changed Fire Science Car Parks And Tunnels Structural Fire Engineering

086 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 4 - Runnehamar tunnel with Haukur Ingason and Anders Lönnermark

Jan. 25, 2023

Would you rather do 20 published experiments and take your impact factors, or make one that truly changed the world of fire science? Or maybe a different way, would you pursue something that is quick, easy and gives immediat…

Fun Episodes Recommendations Batteries And EV's UL FSRI Usefull For Firefighters

085 - E-mobility and energy storage hazards with Adam Barowy

Jan. 18, 2023

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 …

QA#2 - Turning podcast professional and the outcomes of the listener experience survey

Jan. 16, 2023

Welcome to Questions & Answers session 02 covering the recent sponsorship opening in the podcast and how the podcast is turning from a hobby project to something more professional, and the summary of the 2022 listener experi…

Fun Episodes Recommendations Fire Science, Engineering And Education

084 - Industry lead research with Steve Gwynne and Mike Spearpoint

Jan. 11, 2023

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 …

Fire Science Fundamentals

083 - Fire fundamentals pt 1 - Combustion and flame with Rory Hadden

Jan. 4, 2023

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…

Experiments That Changed Fire Science Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling Usefull For Firefighters

082 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 3 - WTC Investigation with Kevin McGrattan

Dec. 28, 2022

Fire science is often accelerated by tragedies. The same goes for the tools we are using and the methods we know. In the early 2000's we already had some great tools, in fact, it was the era where the paradigm of fire modell…

Fun Episodes Recommendations Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling Fire Science, Engineering And Education

081 - The origins of FDS with Kevin McGrattan

Dec. 21, 2022

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 a…

080 - Adaptive Fire Testing: A new foundation stone for fire safety (ERC StG Grant) with Ruben van Coile

Dec. 14, 2022

Today is a great day to celebrate with Prof Ruben van Coile of Ghent University, who is most likely the first representative of Fire Safety Engineering to receive a grant within the European Research Councill Starting Grant …

079 - Timber columns failure in the decay phase with Thomas Gernay and Jochen Zehfuss

Dec. 7, 2022

When the flaming combustion stops and the raging inferno disappears, the environment is still far away from a stable, stationary state. The heat emitted by the fire and accumulated by the structural elements is still on the …

QA#1 - November 2022

Dec. 5, 2022

Welcome to Questions & Answers session 01 covering the topics brought up in November 2022. In this session you can find answers to the following questions: Fire resistance of joints asked by Millie Wan (answered by Piotr Tur…

078 - Experiments that Changed Fire Science pt. 2 - BRE Cardington with Tom Lennon

Nov. 30, 2022

If Dalmarnock was the reality check for fire modelling, we could call the work carried by BRE at Cardington the birthplace of Structural Fire Engineering. Welcome to episode 2 of Experiments that Changed Fire Science! In th…

Sustainable Future And Burning Issues Wildfires, WUI And Wind

077 - Informal settlements - we need solutions not gadgets, Richard Walls

Nov. 23, 2022

Delivery of fire safety to one billion inhabitants of informal settlements cannot be done through a single solution. No magical extinguishing ball nor hyper-sensitive sensor can solve this issue. As it is not a single issue …

Experiments That Changed Fire Science Risk, Performance Based Engineering And Modelling

076 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 1 - Dalmarnock Fire Tests Round Robin study with Guillermo Rein and Wolfram Jahn

Nov. 16, 2022

Welcome to a mini-series of episodes on experiments that changed fire science. In the first episode, we cover the a prioiri and posteriori modelling task within the Dalmarnock Fire Experiments programme carried out by the BR…

Fun Episodes Recommendations Fire Science, Engineering And Education

075 - Spacecraft fire safety with David Urban

Nov. 9, 2022

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…

Structural Fire Engineering Fire Science, Engineering And Education

074 - Engineering not magic, intumescent coatings with Andrea Lucherini

Nov. 2, 2022

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.…