Season 1
100 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 3 - Smoke plumes (and other flow phenomena) with Wojciech
May 10, 2023
This week we cover the fundamentals of smoke flow (proliferation!), entrainment and smoke plumes. All the basics that impact the spread of the smoke in our buildings. You will learn: the ideal gas assumption for a smoke mixt…
099 - Electric vehicle fires in tunnels with Peter Sturm
May 3, 2023
Do you have any idea how bad the tunnel fire will be if there is an EV involved? That is a question I hear a lot, way more often than I would like. And usually, my answers do not get approval. I guess telling people "doesn't…
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…
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.…
072 - Extracting the secret of IMFSE from Bart Merci and Eulalia Planas
Oct. 19, 2022
Many creators will not agree, but in some cases, copying is the highest form of admiration. And there are things in Fire Safety Engineering that are more than worthy of being copied. One of them is the famous International M…
070 - Fire resistance is whatever you want it to be with Piotr Turkowski
Oct. 5, 2022
Today we talk fire resistance, but unlike you have ever heard. Join me and Dr Piotr Turkowski - two fire laboratory professionals in an honest discussion about their craft. The challenges in standardization and committee wor…
064 - Heat stress in fires - from inside and outside with Denise Smith and Gavin Horn
Aug. 24, 2022
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 Ga…
063 - Why do we need a handbook of fire and the environment with Brian Meacham and Margaret McNamee
Aug. 17, 2022
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 brillia…
061 - Glazing in fire with Yu Wang
Aug. 2, 2022
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 compartme…
050 - Wind, fire and a surprise
May 11, 2022
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 n…
042 - Unsafe environment of post fire scenes with Gavin Horn
March 16, 2022
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 st…
035 - Fire safety as cornerstone of sustainability with Margaret McNamee
Jan. 26, 2022
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 …
033 - Science, theatre or engineering? Polish take on hot smoke test with Piotr Smardz and Janusz Paliszek
Jan. 12, 2022
Have you ever heard about the hot smoke testing approach? If you had, there is a great chance you have not heard anything positive about it... From our experience, this method is often downplayed as useless, unrealistic and …
031 - Suppressing tunnel fires with water mist with Johny Jessen
Dec. 15, 2021
Can water mist be used in tunnels? I wondered that for a long time, and with every tunnel project, many questions around this issue were piling in my head. When dealing with large infrastructure projects you really need to w…
030 - Visibility Prediction Framework with Lukas Arnold
Dec. 8, 2021
If you ever had anything to do with Fire Safety Engineering, you have most likely touched the visibility in smoke. What's an easier way to explain how bad the conditions are inside of a building than saying how much smoke wa…
029 -Busses, flammability and an unknown force holding good solutions back... with Anja Hofmann-Böllinghaus
Dec. 1, 2021
This is not a fun episode. It starts with a tragedy, that fueled a whole field of research. Continues into disbelief, that one aspect of fire safety can be at the same chosen as the sole foundation of fire safety within a br…
027 - Travelling fires with Guillermo Rein
Nov. 17, 2021
If you have ever learned about the compartment fire dynamics framework, have tried zone modelling or any kind of fire modelling, you have probably noticed that as the compartments get bigger, the less uniform conditions insi…
025 - Structural fire engineering with engineered timber with Felix Wiesner
Nov. 3, 2021
In Episode 18 we have touched on the important topic of fire performance of engineered wood and its wide use in the modern built environment. Today, we follow up on this subject with Dr Felix Wiesner from the University of …
022 - Combustion, fluid mechanics and fire safety engineering with Michael Gollner
Oct. 13, 2021
https://firelab.berkeley.edu/ this is the place you need to go! Ignition at different slope angles. Firebrand spotting. Fire whirls. What does connect these various fire phenomena? They are all driven by fluid dynamics and c…
021 - Resilient design for firefighter safety with Ali Ashrafi
Oct. 5, 2021
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 …
017 - Pyrolife - from fire resistance to fire resilience with Cathelijne Stoof
Sept. 8, 2021
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 Cathelij…
016 - The future of evacuation modelling with Enrico Ronchi and Ruggiero Lovreglio
Sept. 1, 2021
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 rel…
015 - Global view on the fire safety from a starchitect perpective with Benjamin Ralph
Aug. 25, 2021
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 buildin…
014 - A joyrney through the scales of fire phenomena with Sara McAllister
Aug. 18, 2021
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 …
013 - On the use and abuse of CFD in fire engineering with Wolfram Jahn
Aug. 11, 2021
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 …
012 - Science, Industry, Legislators. How do we make them work together on a fire safe world? - Kees Both
Aug. 4, 2021
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…
011 - Why temperature is so easy to measure but so hard to interpret?
July 28, 2021
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…
010 - Seeking the origins of standardized fire testing and ancient fire protection materials with John Gales
July 21, 2021
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 constr…
009 - Cognitive biases and decision making in evacuation with Michael Kinsey
July 13, 2021
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 d…
008 - Zone modelling is not dead with Colleen Wade
July 7, 2021
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 sci…
007 - AI in smart firefighting and the future of FSE PBD with Xinyan Huang
June 29, 2021
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 fu…
006 - EV's, rapid fires and car parks
June 23, 2021
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 c…
Battery fires with Roeland Bisschop
June 16, 2021
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 …
Facade fires and AI with Matt Bonner
June 9, 2021
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 way…
Introduction
June 2, 2021
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…
Smouldering megafires with Guillermo Rein
June 2, 2021
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 st…
Tenability criteria with Gabriele Vigne
June 2, 2021
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 Ga…