Episodes
Oct. 5, 2021
021 - Resilient design for firefighter safety with Ali Ashrafi
It is hard for us, fire safety engineers, to talk to firefighters on how to do their job... Probably we even shouldn't, as we have no idea how it is to truly go there into the heat and battle fire to save lives. But it does n...
Sept. 29, 2021
020 - Fire Safety Engineering as a socio-technical system with Brian Meacham
Do you sometimes feel that fire safety engineering is not making a footprint as it should? With all our knowledge, models, technology...why do huge fires exist? Why fire is such a threat to billions of humans? In today's epis...
Sept. 21, 2021
019 - Modelling human behaviour in wildfire evacuation with Erica Kuligowski
There is plenty of fire engineers who think they are modelling human behaviour... Some claim they can do it... And there is very, very few who actually did and succeeded with it. One of them is today's guest, Dr Erica Kuligow...
Sept. 15, 2021
018 - Engineered timber with Danny Hopkin
Engineered timber is on a trajectory to become the construction material of the future. However, on that pathway there stands the fire issue. Wood burns, it is inevitable. This is something we must accept, and learn to work a...
Sept. 8, 2021
017 - Pyrolife - from fire resistance to fire resilience with Cathelijne Stoof
When you think about battling wildfires, what is the image you see in front of your eyes? Probably an air tanker (at least that was what I saw...). After this interview, your optics will change about 180 degrees. Dr Cathelijn...
Sept. 1, 2021
016 - The future of evacuation modelling with Enrico Ronchi and Ruggiero Lovreglio
Evacuation modelling is paramount in accounting for the human aspect in our fire modelling. But how is it developing? Where are we with our tools, and where are we heading with them? What are the most profound challenges rela...
Aug. 25, 2021
015 - Global view on the fire safety from a starchitect perpective with Benjamin Ralph
Have you ever wondered who truly has the most power over the fire safety of a building? In my opinion, the answer is very simple - the Architect. This is due to two reasons. First is that the architect can affect the building...
Aug. 18, 2021
014 - A joyrney through the scales of fire phenomena with Sara McAllister
Have you ever wondered how is a fire of a match or candle different from a wildfire? Or maybe rather, why is it different? What is it, that makes the fires at different scales behave in such a different manner? What are the p...
Aug. 11, 2021
013 - On the use and abuse of CFD in fire engineering with Wolfram Jahn
We are living in a kind of weird time, where the most complex tool we have is at the same time the most commonly used (and abused one). The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling has brought us amazing capabilities in s...
Aug. 4, 2021
012 - Science, Industry, Legislators. How do we make them work together on a fire safe world? - Kees Both
In this episode, I had the pleasure and privilege to host dr Kees Both, the Technical Manager of Standards & Regulations in Etexgroup. Kees wanted to become a suspension bridge engineer, but his route went through a fire lab,...
July 28, 2021
011 - Why temperature is so easy to measure but so hard to interpret?
What is the single most measured thing in fire science? The answer is easy - temperature. We use it everywhere - from learning material properties in TGA's to expressing conditions in compartment fires. We use it at the same ...
July 21, 2021
010 - Seeking the origins of standardized fire testing and ancient fire protection materials with John Gales
Did you know that the standard temperature-time curve, which is the underpinning of the fire resistance of assemblies, is over 100 years old? Once you know that, you cannot stop but think about how this affects modern constru...
July 13, 2021
009 - Cognitive biases and decision making in evacuation with Michael Kinsey
Why do we take certain decisions during an evacuation process? How do we choose the evacuation route? These are often affected by cognitive biases, which is the main theme of today's episode. With Dr Michael Kinsey we will di...
July 7, 2021
008 - Zone modelling is not dead with Colleen Wade
Zone modelling is a technique introduced in 1970's and 80's that has changed fire science. In my personal opinion, along with oxygen calorimetry and the development of FDS it may have been the most impactful tool of fire scie...
June 29, 2021
007 - AI in smart firefighting and the future of FSE PBD with Xinyan Huang
Everyone is talking about AI, but how can we really use it in fire safety engineering and firefighting? Prof Xinyan Huang of HK PolyU will explain his research in this field, and we can consider it as a time travel to the fut...
June 23, 2021
006 - EV's, rapid fires and car parks
In Episode 6, our host, dr Wojciech Wegrzynski, explains his experiences with modelling rapidly growing fires in car parks. Such fire growth may be typical for EV fires that originate in battery and pose a different set of ch...
June 16, 2021
Battery fires with Roeland Bisschop
Today I've talked to Roeland Bisschop, Project Manager in RISE, about his first-hand experience with battery fires. Roeland explained to me how do battery fires look from a scientific perspective, and how my perspective was k...
June 9, 2021
Facade fires and AI with Matt Bonner
Dr Matthew Bonner of the Imperial College London is one of the leading scientists touching on the subject of the fire safety of facades. His flavour is tackling the complexity through big data analyses and developing new ways...
June 2, 2021
Introduction
Let's do this. For the first time... Welcome to the Fire Science Show! My name is Wojciech Wegrzynski, and I'm with the Building Research Institute (ITB) in Warsaw, Poland. In this episode you will learn who I am, where do I ...
June 2, 2021
Smouldering megafires with Guillermo Rein
Guillermo Rein is a recipient of ERC Consildator Grant on smouldering megafires. The most challenging source of founding, meant for the projects that can truly change the world. And his HAZE project is just like that - to stu...
June 2, 2021
Tenability criteria with Gabriele Vigne
How do you know if a building is safe in fire or not? Usually through performing ASET-RSET analyses, in which you determine how and when the tenability criteria in the building are breached. This is what I discuss with dr Gab...
May 24, 2021
Trailer - Fire Science Show
Hello world!!! This is the trailer episode for the Fire Science Show. I'm sharing with you some backstage news, a bit of origin story and an introduction to my great guests that have agreed to be interviewed by me. I really ...