Episodes

The subject of structural fire engineering was long overdue in the podcast schedule. But once I finally got it on my agenda, I made sure to interview one of the very best there are - prof Thomas Gernay of John Hopkins University. Not only a structural engineer and researcher, but also one of the developers of SAFIR® - one of most popular structural fire engineering numerical codes out there. In this discussion I get to ask some important questions on the role structural fire engineering plays i...

How does being a volunteer firefighter improve your abilities to do Performance-Based Design (PBD) and how your knowledge in PBD may translate to firefighting? That is not a question you can ask to every fire protection engineer, but luckily - David Stacy is one who can answer that fully. Tapping into his unique skillset and career path I try to extract answers on how does one translate firefighting experience into improved design. Where does he see the most immediate gain (duh - communication!)...

I once said the future looks stupid... but after this discussion with Arnold Dix, I know - future is exciting. And for Fire Safety Engineers and others involved in fire protection - the future seems to be super exciting! In this episode, we let go and try to discuss the future tech in the world of tunnelling. From autonomous vehicles in tiny (and seems a bit dangerous) tunnels, McDonnaldization of TBM's, Hyperloops to city concepts build all the way around humans (and tunnels!). This is a future...

A few episodes ago I called for better communication in fire safety. And in this episode, tunnel fire safety legend Prof. Arnold Dix is answering that, by teaching us the ways of the 'sustainability' talk - how to communicate better having the global sustainability goals in mind? But it is not only a way of communication. It is a mindset. And it is a powerful one, leading to a rethink of the concept of safety and how one is delivered. A rejuvenating perspective in which we are mindful of our sol...

It has been one year since I started this show. I've promised you that we will learn Fire Safety Engineering together, and today comes a great time to reflect on some lessons learnt. In this episode, I will take you on a short journey through some most insightful moments in the show, that allowed me to identify the number one skill needed to thrive as a fire protection engineer. What is that skill? Well press the play button and find it for yourself! The answer is 35 minutes away, and I promise...

With this lifestyle, this was inevitable... due to a busy week I had to move the schedule a bit and was pretty sure I will get away with it by recording a solo episode... but my throat has decided otherwise and I kind of cannot record a full episode. I need a week off to heal this up before the 1-year anniversary episode that I care a lot about! In the meantime, please try and enjoy some excellent episodes from the past, which I have recommended in this short apology piece: https://www.firesci...

You have seen these lovely evacuation simulations, the ones with a bunch of agents moving together or clumping at an exit. Ones that we use to determine ASET condition, and which are present in almost every large PBD project... Maybe even you are running such simulations. So, with that experience in mind - have you ever wondered if what you see makes sense. We all feel that humans in groups behave differently than a bunch of units in a crowd. But to what extent that 'different' could be importa...

In this show, we often discuss how fire science can help firefighters. Today we drop the UNO reverse card and figure out what firefighters actually need from fire science. And for that, I've got a perfect person to talk to - a firefighter, commander, instructor and a fire scientist. Szymon Kokot of the Nidzica Fire Brigade and CFBT Poland With this talk, I wanted to achieve two answers. How firefighters view fire science (and how to make it more useful to them). And how engineers should view fi...

Episode 50! Time to celebrate, and for this one we have a surprise. A mysterious host takes over the show to interview a wind and fire modelling celebrity... Ok, this should be enough to not reveal everything once the show notes get auto-posted on all social media :) I am super happy for multiple reasons. You guys were with me 50 times on my way to share fire science with everyone who wants to listen. You have downloaded my content 25.000 times. And finally, I get to share with you some of my o...

So we all know batteries burn... but do we know what exactly does burn? What is inside this tiny metal cylinder that scares so many of us? We try to understand it a bit more with Dr Francesco Restuccia of Kings College London, who is an expert in battery fire safety and self-heating. And this combination of skills gave him a unique view of the challenges of fire safety of batteries - especially the ones that are stored in warehouses and not fueling anything. Francesco takes me on a journey into ...

Did you know first car parks were built for electric vehicles? Or what clever techniques can be used to model the spread of fire between vehicles? Or what challenges scientists meet burning vehicles, and why pneumatic suspension makes stuff more interesting... These (and much much more) are the things you learn by inviting Mike Spearpoint of the OFR for a lovely chat about design fires in car parks, and car parking infrastructure in general. But wait for it, there is much more. The hidden under...

Pressurization is a common strategy for protecting spaces against the infiltration of smoke. However, the solution has a kind-of bad press as "not-working" or "incapable to meet its design goals". We know, that the systems are as good as their design, and in this episode with my guest, Grzegorz Sypek, we try to bust some myths around PDS systems. We touch on the important design points and the properties of modern solutions available in the market. We also discuss the standardization of PDS syst...

This week we do something funny - a crossover episode with the host of the Fire Code Tech podcast - Gus Gagliardi. We end up discussing the paths of fire safety engineers, from school to specialized roles in engineering companies, and the challenges associated with that. We hope you liked this twist to the podcast, and maybe discovered a new show to follow up! If you want to hear a familiar voice, you can start with this episode https://firecodetech.com/research-smoke-control-systems-and-cfd-wi...

How does one decide when a building is fire safe? That is a real hell of a question to answer! Is it when no harm can occur? But such a condition can never be fulfilled... there is always a meteor waiting around the corner to fall into your building! So if some situations can occur for which we cannot prepare, when do we decide we are 'safe enough'? This is the tough question we try to decipher together with prof. Ruben van Coile and prof. Danny Hopkin. It is an inspiring journey, and you can t...

Since Episode 6, the fire safety of battery systems was not very much visible in the show - a good time to change that! And we do this with a true legend of fire safety - Ofodike Ezekoye. In the last year, I have learnt a lot about battery systems, which did not make me more afraid. Entirely opposite - the more I know, the more confident I am in fire science and engineers finding solutions for any outstanding issues with this emerging technology. In this episode, we go through the challenges at ...

It is always a pleasure to interview a true legend of fire safety. And when the topic of the interview is their thoughts on neglected areas of our discipline, based on almost five decades of experience? This must end up great! And it did (IMHO). Please join me and prof. Vyto Babrauskas in discovering what are the parts of fire science that are in need of research. What are some obvious solutions, that I think we all acknowledge, but for some reason, we do not have? What are the dead ends and mi...

We all understand the dangers of smoke inhalation in fires. But what about the site of the fire a few days after it was put out? It looks clean, maybe even lost the smell... Is it something to worry about, or you can rush straight in, wearing your shorts and a t-shirt? Well, I guess I would not be that reckless, but if I can be honest - I don't think I would care that much about protecting myself either... At least that was me before the talk to dr Gavin Horn from UL FSRI. Gavin spent more than...

How reliable are sprinkler systems? Is it 100%? Is it 95%? Maybe it is 88%... actually, whatever the number is, do we truly understand what does it represent? What does it mean that a sprinkler has succeeded and what does it mean it failed. These are the questions that were behind my today's interview with Arnstein Fedoy. You may remember Arnstein from his short appearance in episode 26 . This time, we've had the whole episode for this discussion, and I must say it was well invested hour on my s...

This week I've invited a guest, that I was looking to talk to for a good while... Dr Ingo Riess from Riess Ingenieur-GmbH is someone I look up to in the field of tunnel fire safety, in which I am very active in the last few years. In this chat, we had the chance to go through the concept of tunnel resiliency and calculate the risk related to the whole road network, rather than just a tunnel on its own. This is such a refreshing concept, in which the goal - maximizing public safety - is well defi...

What does the future hold? Probably no one knows. But what happens in near future with some of the most popular tools used by the FSE community? That is a great question to a tool developer - Bryan Klein of Thunderhead Engineering, the company that brought us the most popular FDS pre-processor PyroSim and as popular evacuation model Pathfinder. In this talk, we focus on CFD modelling, and the impact pre-and postprocessing tools had on our capabilities to tackle fire problems with our computers....

It is the third time we talk about mass timber and fire in this show, and I hope every time the message gets even more refined. In this episode, it is clear - fire resistance is not always enough. But why? You will learn that from dr Daniel Brandon from RISE who spent last years researching timber in fire. In this episode, we discuss the limitations of the fire resistance approach in testing timber structures, and also venture beyond it - how does exposed timber change the fire dynamics in a fur...

If you were investigating phenomena and built your whole narrative around a flawed and debunked concept, would that get published? Would that get cited? Would that be recognized? Many of us would say an obvious *no*, but that is not so obvious when we discuss the human behaviour field of science and the concept of panic (the p-word we do not say!). Even though among top evacuation scientists there seems to be a consensus about why this concept is flawed, every year we see more and more papers in...

In this episode I was really happy to host two amazing researchers from UL FSRI - Dr Steve Kerber, the VP of Underwriter Laboratories and Director of UL Fire Safety Research Institute, and Dr Craig Weinschenk, research engineer and a data wizard. Together we venture into the world of fire research carried together with firefighters, with the critical goal of saving firefighter lives and reducing the damage caused by fire. Join us to learn how the largest full-scale fire experiments are performed...

Building a fire-safe future is not an easy task. Including sustainability in that build, is even harder. But how hard is it to include fire safety in the discussion, when sustainability itself is a goal? Does sustainability even exist when fire safety is excluded? I think we have learned the hard way that that is not an option. Yet, so often dangerous innovations are introduced without consulting with fire experts. In this episode, we delve into this important and difficult matter with prof. Mar...