Fire Science Show

In the episode 10 of fire fundamentals together with David Morrisset, a nearly graduated PhD student from the University of Edinburgh, we explore the intricate dynamics of flame spread and its crucial role in fire safety engineering. David helps us differentiate between the two primary modes of flame spread, concurrent (imagine upward spread) and opposed (imagine downward spread), and explains how...

With two Directors at NFPA - Michele Steinberg and Birgitte Messerschmidt, I'm trying to find an answer to a burning question - " what really is the WUI problem?" The WUI is not just a line on a map with an X distance from the forest... In this episode we try to define what it is, and who is in danger. Instead of our usual conversations looking into characteristics of burning forest...

In today's Fire Science Show, we talk about how boundary conditions can make or break your fire simulation models. We'll explore boundary conditions' fundamental role in defining how simulations interact with their environments and how mastering these can lead to more accurate and reliable fire simulation models. I hope we break down some complex topics into manageable insights. Als...

A critical velocity episode... who would have thought? Even though I'm not an enthusiast of this approach, I have to admire the new science and researchers striving to improve it. This week I welcome Conrad Stacey and Michael Beyer from Stacey Agnew to talk about their recent developments. We'll take you through the historical development of this concept since its inception in 1958, exam...

What if you could predict the last possible time to evacuate your community before a wildfire wreaks havoc? What if you had that knowledge years before the wildfires happened and built up your preparedness based on this knowledge? What if you knew how this boundary changes with wind, dry weather and direction?  I think you get a knowledge-based decision model, and that is exactly what my guests to...

Misconceptions in fire science are a strange thing. You present countless proof, publish research papers, and carry conversations, and yet… they live their own lives—spreading with no control and cluttering communication. One space is full of them—the fire safety of photovoltaic installations on flat roofs. In the Fire Science Show, we already had two very powerful episodes on PV—one with Jens Kri...

Happy birthday, Fire Science Show!  On the 3rd Anniversary of the podcast launch, I'm thrilled to deliver an episode on one of the most fascinating aspects of fire science - the compartment fire. Instead of going through the usual curriculum of the phases of fire, transitioning into flashover and flashover itself, I instead focus on the methodology's practical aspects. Which parts of the...

I'm very sorry, but I could not finalize the episode to air this week in time, and in consequence, I have chosen to have a short technical break in the podcast. We will return next week with a (hopefully) really exciting episode on compartment fires! It will be kind of a birthday party, so I'm looking forward to that and trying to ensure the episode is worthy of the occasion. In the mean...

A few weeks ago in Copenhagen, stepping onto the stage to open the SFPE Fire Safety Conference and Expo on Performance-Based Design, I took a bit of a gamble. I was invited to give an opening keynote, but instead of talking about my fire science and engineering, I've chosen to confront an often-overlooked cornerstone of our profession: communication. If you follow the podcast, it is not somet...

In this episode, we dive into standardization efforts for fire safety. An entire universe of testing laboratories, committees, auditors, and certifiers work together to provide product end-user fire safety classification. So, in the end, the user does not have to worry about what the product will do, as its relevant characteristics are well known from the certificate and, to some extent, from the...

The fire is detected in the building. Please evacuate. Do not use the elevator. I’ve heard this emergency message perhaps a thousand times. It is deeply engraved in my mind to the extent that the moment I hear the first beep of the fire alarm, I know this message will come up. I heard the chime sound, and I knew I should evacuate and not use the elevator. But in all seriousness, why? Why shouldn’t...

Wind turbine fires - are they an issue, or are they not? In this episode, I am joined by Prof. Guillermo Rein of the Imperial College London, who raised this issue 10 years ago at the IAFSS conference, and I believe we still do not have a clear answer. In this episode, we discuss the fire safety of wind turbines using the layers of protection framework - from suppression, detection, and prevention...

CROSS UK is Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures in UK. CROSS is a confidential reporting system which allows professionals working in the built environment to report on fire and structural safety issues. These are then published anonymously to share lessons learned, create positive change, and improve safety. Find out more about the safety information we provide below. This initiative in...

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we go in depth on the Building Integrated Photo-Voltaic systems (BIPV). It is a topic relevant to many fire engineers, and one on which it is very difficult to find a lot of information about. For this purpose I’ve invited Reidar Stølen from RISE and a PhD candidate at Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU. Reidar has hands-on experience wit...

In this episode, we explore wildfire's impact on industrial fire safety with Professor Eulàlia Planas from Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. Eulalia defines the term  Wildland Industrial Interface (WII), a realm where the forces of nature clash with safety and process engineering. In the episode, we highlight that it is not just the exposure to the fire itself but also to the secondary ef...

Depression and anxiety are on the rise in both academia and engineering consultancies. Everyone is constantly stressed and pushed to their limits. The system is built this way... And imagine that on top of the inadequate mental health related to the stressful environment, you also struggle with a mental illness. A health condition you did not choose, you may or may not be aware of, and may or may...

In this episode, we discuss the stark realities of fire safety engineering in South Africa (and beyond) as we sit down with Professor Richard Walls from Stellenbosch University. Our journey through the recent history of devastating fires, from truck blasts to the fire that took down the SA Parliament building, lays bare the critical gaps in resources, awareness and education that have catastrophic...

Imagine if we had a tool that we could use to design a design fire. Instead of simply assuming fire growth characteristics by slapping the alpha-t2 function, use a tool that could tell us which items in a compartment burn and what the characteristics of that fire are. I would say this dream is shared among many fire safety engineers - I think we can all agree that we could use such a tool. Today&a...

In today's fire fundamentals episode, I have chosen a difficult job: explaining how CFD modelling works without the ability to put a single equation out there! It's much tougher than I thought! I hope I've done a decent job, though. I am trying to fill out this niche of talking about CFD at an approachable level. I've noticed there is a ton of 'introductory' level res...

If the word 'uncertainty' sounds extremely boring to you, this episode will prove you wrong. I have invited David Morrisset from the University of Edinburgh to discuss his research on the subject. Whereas in fact David is establishing standard deviations, means and other statistical means of quantifying uncertainty in core fire measurements, the really impactful and important part of his...

This week, I am meeting up with Imperial Hazelab's Harry Mitchell, who is finalizing his PhD thesis on mass timber fires and, quite uniquely - including the smouldering phenomena in those fires. As a part of Code Red experiments run by Arup, Imperial College London and Cerib (which you can learn more about from episode 111 with Panos Kotsovinos )  Harry has performed observations of formation...

Tests in the world of reaction to fire are supposed to be representations of real fire scenarios, allowing us to grasp the characteristics of building products against them. While for the worst scenario (flashover fire) or the smallest ignition source (small flame), the definition is pretty straightforward. However, creating the intermediate method that the entire Europe would agree on was a bumpy...

I've finished my first large research grant! I guess that makes me a 'real' scientist now. Came here today to share some most interesting aspects of this project with you. Not going to bore you all about the wind and fire interaction physics (hey, there is an entire episode 50 devoted to that! ), but rather talk about challenges and stuff that perhaps will matter if you would like t...

It is interesting to see changes in our profession that happen directly in front of our lives. Climate change and in consequence the changes in the wildfire patterns are one such obvious shift. In Poland, we do not ever have a ‘wildfire’ season, and I was kind of surprised when I discovered this is a thing in the South or in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, we do not have it *yet*. Some ye...

This episode of the Fire Science Show welcomes once again Adam Barowy from the Fire Safety Research Institute to shed light on the pressing issue of fire hazards in electric mobility devices. In this episode, we give a follow-up to ep. 085 with Adam , which was published one year ago. One year in the world of e-mobility is a lot of time, so we have a lot of catching up to do! We tackle the complex...