Episodes
Sept. 21, 2022
068 - Human walking speed and factors that influence it with John Gales
What factors influence the walking speed of an occupant? Is it just their physiology and crowd density? It seems it is more complicated than that (as most things are in fire science...). Dr John Gales of York University takes...
Sept. 14, 2022
067 - Next-gen smoke control experimental facility and a digital twin with Grzegorz Krajewski
We've felt a bit awkward about how FSE handles smoke control in corridors. If you look closely into common practices, they rarely do include impressive engineering - more often you see some 'tips and tricks' that make the CFD...
Sept. 7, 2022
066 - Fire Safe Use of Wood in Buildings with Andy Buchanan
I wonder if we will be ever able to say: we know exactly how to build fire-safe buildings with mass timber. However that day may never come, each day of research brings us a little bit closer to achieving this goal. And some...
Aug. 31, 2022
065 - Understanding mesh sensitivity and model uncertainties with Jason Floyd
Will a higher resolution mesh make my CFD more accurate? That is a harmless question, and most of us would tend toward 'I guess yeah'. But let us try and unpack this. Into atoms! What does higher resolution mean? How exactly ...
Aug. 24, 2022
064 - Heat stress in fires - from inside and outside with Denise Smith and Gavin Horn
This amount of heat flux for this amount of time, routine conditions, check, done. This is how I used to do my engineering and tenability assessment related to heat stress... up till today when prof Denisse Smith and prof Gav...
Aug. 17, 2022
063 - Why do we need a handbook of fire and the environment with Brian Meacham and Margaret McNamee
Do we need another fire handbook? If so, what handbook would that be? I guess a question like this must have gone through Brian Meachams' mind when he got the idea for a handbook of fire and environment. And he got a brillian...
Aug. 10, 2022
062 - BIM (not only for fire) with Peter Thompson and Rino Lovreglio
It does not matter if you hate or love BIM, does not matter if you use it daily or have no idea what it is... Building Information Modelling will be an important part of our engineering future and we better get used to it. I...
Aug. 2, 2022
061 - Glazing in fire with Yu Wang
The relation between ventilation conditions and fire severity is quite a fundamental one. You don't even have to be a fire safety engineer to realize that more air means a bigger fire. But how does air get into the compartmen...
July 27, 2022
060 - How PV panels change the fire behaviour of roofs with Jens Kristensen
[March 2023 update] The Thesis PDF is finally available! Check it here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369141515_Fire_risk_associated_with_photovoltaic_installations_on_flat_roof_constructions_-_Experimental_analysi...
July 20, 2022
059 - Residential fire safety with Dan Madrzykowski and Charlie Fleischmann
How much the fire scene at households has changed over the last 30 years? Why modern furniture burns worse than one made with wood, cotton and other natural materials? And what does that mean to firefighting? What challenges ...
July 13, 2022
058 - Animal pyrocognition - a path to undestand our beginnings with fire with Ivo Jacobs
Have you wondered how fire science started? But I mean the real real start... not 1666 one, nor the one when we've started to build furnaces... The start when the first evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens figured out this w...
July 6, 2022
057 - Structural fire engineering with Thomas Gernay
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 Univer...
June 29, 2022
056 - Performance Based Fire Protection Engineer with David Stacy
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 engin...
June 22, 2022
055 - The future is exciting with Arnold Dix (part 2)
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 t...
June 15, 2022
054 - The sustainability talk, tunnels and fire safety with Arnold Dix (part 1)
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...
June 8, 2022
053 - The number one skill to thrive as an FSE I've learnt in 1 year of podcasting
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 shor...
June 1, 2022
404 - Host not found, throat infections suck.
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 cann...
May 25, 2022
052 - More realism in evacuation modelling with Anne Templeton
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....
May 18, 2022
051 - Fire Science in eyes of a firefighter with Szymon Kokot
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 - ...
May 11, 2022
050 - Wind, fire and a surprise
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 no...
May 4, 2022
049 - What burns inside a battery with Francesco Restuccia
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...
April 27, 2022
048 - Car parks, design fires and the broad world of fire science with Mike Spearpoint
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 suspens...
April 20, 2022
047 - Effective pressurization of compartments with Grzegorz Sypek
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 ar...
April 12, 2022
046 - Fire Code Tech crossover with Gus Gagliardi
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 compa...