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I would like to take this opportunity to wish you Merry Christmas, a great time with your families, a bit of rest and time to reflect, and an awesome 2026 to come! If you are desperate for fire science on Christmas Eve, check out the OFR report on open car park fires, which we were able to contribute to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-open-sided-car-parks ---- The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to...

Fire doesn’t play by Earth’s rules once you leave gravity behind. In this deep dive with Professor Michael Gollner, we unpack what the recent experiments at the ISS called SoFIE-MIST taught us about solid fuel flammability in microgravity—how tiny ventilation, oxygen levels, and pressure shifts determine whether a flame spreads, stalls, or vanishes. The details are surprising: blue “bubble” flames, two distinct extinction points, and sustained burning at oxygen levels that would fail to ignite o...

In this episode we dive into the ap between standardized tests and experiments, trying to figure out (a) is there a difference and (b) if there is, could not understanding the difference quietly erode safety. With guest David Morrisset (Queensland University), we unpack furnace ratings that read like time but aren’t, cladding classifications that were never meant for façades, and the infamous bird-strike test that shows how any standard bakes in choices and consequences. The throughline: context...

The AI revolution has arrived, but fire safety engineers face a critical dilemma: how to leverage powerful AI tools while protecting confidential project data. Professor Ruggiero Rino Lovreglio from Massey University and Dr. Amir Rafe from Utah State University join us to explore the world of local Large Language Models (LLMs) - AI systems you can run privately on your own computer without sending sensitive information to the cloud. While cloud-based AI like ChatGPT raises serious privacy conce...

Four years ago, what began as a mission to preserve valuable fire safety engineering conversations has grown into a fairly large platform connecting professionals across 170+ countries. The journey to 200 episodes and nearly 200,000 downloads has been both challenging and deeply rewarding – in this episode, I share a bit about my journey, the state of things and the near future of the podcast. *** Important notice: at the end of the show notes is a survey , and I would be thrilled if you part...

This episode explores the invaluable contributions of community participation in fire safety technical committees. Joining committees is not just about sharing expertise; it’s a journey that transforms careers and fosters growth. Our guests, Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both, reveal how their experiences in various committees, including the NFPA, ISO, ASTM and CEN, have shaped their professional paths. As we dive deeper into the intricacies of committee politics, our guests candidly share th...

This episode emphasises the value of focusing on simple things in fire safety engineering, something we somehow miss when we go too deep into the technical details of our projects. I've looked at eight different aspects of fire safety - inspired by the CPR requirements, and I've added resiliency, redundancy and suppression to them. By promoting straightforward guidelines like evaluating material combustibility, ensuring effective egress routes, and engaging with rescue services, architects and e...

History repeats itself. A new thing is invented. We learn about it, understand it, and apply measures to capture its behaviour and regulate it. And then another new thing is invented. The measures we used start failing us, and the cycle repeats all over again. It is not a story of fire safety; it is a story of humanity. Similar cycles can be observed in all aspects of technology. One could call them Innovation Blind Spots after Prof. Rein; in science, you could call them paradigm shifts after P...

I just drove 500 km to have a conversation with Professor Vincent Brannigan from the University of Maryland, a very unique expert who combines law with fire engineering. In this discussion, we go into the complexities of building codes and fire safety, comparing traditional design methods (prescriptive) with performance-based designs (and all the stuff in between them). Through anecdotes and historical fire incidents, we highlight the impact of these systems on societal safety, economic developm...

Happy 200th birthday, Scottish Fire and Rescue Services!!! I'm a bit late to the party. Still, I've done my best to celebrate your anniversary in the best way I can - by giving homage to the amazing fire safety engineering and firefighting that came out of Edinburgh and your founder, James Braidwood. In this episode, we tap into the secrets of early fire safety measures and discover the fascinating history of firefighting with our guest, Michał Stachowicz, a dedicated Scottish firefighter. We p...

Is the "best practice" always the best approach to solving an engineering problem? Can we consider "best" and "appropriate" practices synonymous, and if not - how big is the gap between them? Join us as we welcome Professor Arnold Dix back to challenge conventional wisdom in engineering. Focusing on the nuanced distinction between "best practice" and "appropriate practice," we explore how context-sensitive solutions outperform complex and costly standards. Using real-world examples like tunnel v...

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 building have the largest impact on the fire? What is the impact of the opening? How much fuel matters? What ...

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 something new to you. I brought up this case multiple times - Fire safety is not just about the technical mast...

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 not be treating... Now, add trying to build a family and advance the most challenging part of the ac...

In today's episode, we go into the practical consequences of having an underventilated fire - that is the possibility of backdraught or other similar smoke explosion phenomena. My guest Dr Ricky Carvel from the University of Edinburgh, touches on the chemistry of combustion, explaining why the underventilated fire is different than the oxygen-rich one, and how flammability limits are critical in understanding dynamic phenomena that may occur in a fuel-rich environment. We go into conditions in w...

Dear friends of the Fire Science Show, and listeners of the Smart Passive Income Podcast - today is some sort of a special broadcast. As I have just been featured in THE podcast https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/shows/spi/ I've chosen to create a lightweight episode on what Fire Safety Engineering is. I hope this is interesting to people who never heard about the term and a great reflection on what we do to all who practice the world's best job. I'm unraveling this together with our esteemed g...

Energy storage systems are vital systems in fuel transition and as a part of technology responding to the challenges of climate change. Not only for their capability to store energy but also for exploring strategies like peak shaving or allowing for more distributed energy generation. In this discussion, we consider them as fixed storage systems but also recognize that moveable load such as vehicles poses similar challenges. Even though fire safety energy storage is still a part of academic dis...

We all agree competencies are key to fire safety. We have discussed this. We have argued about this. We have come up with decent sets of core competencies, course curricula and numerous courses and modules that help us be competent in what we are doing. This podcast is to keep me and you competent in what we are doing. But this is insufficient in the modern world. Because it is not just us who need to be competent. Today I've invited Dr Michael Woodrow from UCL to talk about what fire competenc...

This week in place of a normal episode I would like to share an interview I gave to my friend Kevin Sofen in his podcast. In this episode I am interviewed by Kevin on the science of fire, how I understand the built environment and the challenges it brings. Kevin asks me some really tough questions, like what the fire-safe world is, and how to innovate in space of the fire engineering. I have highly enjoyed this discussion, and if you have not heard it at the Smart Firefighting Podcast, I hope yo...

This episode is the 2nd part of interview with Professor David Purser, this year recipient of IAFSS'14 Emmons Plenary Lecture. If you have not seen it, I would highly encourage you to first listen to the Part 1, which sets the context of the discussion here. In Part 1 we have talked a lot about the toxic hazards and how the production of toxicants has evolved together with fire loads. We have also gone quite deep into the toxicity of CO. In part 2, we cover the combined effects of asphyxiant ga...

I have to start with a word of warning, I am extremally hyped about this and upcoming episodes. I think for the first time I have recorded a podcast episode with a ratio of my commentary to the guest 1:5. This is because when you get Prof. David Purser to tell you about toxicology, there is not much to add. It is a story of the history of fire science, difficult discoveries and how a fire scientist had to combine knowledge from multiple fields into useful models. All of this is so that engineers...

In the fifth episode of mini-series 'Experiments that changed fire science' we cover the compartment fire experimental campaigns carried at NBS (now NIST) in 1970's and 1980's, with the maybe most famous of them all - the Steckler's room experiment. My guest - prof. James Quintiere touches on the experimental design, design choices and most importantly - the technology available to measure and how they made it work. If you would like to read more on this science, start up with these pieces Ste...

It's finally here, the episode many of you were waiting for! Discussing the history of US fire movement with prof. James Quintiere from the University of Maryland. I often wondered what it felt like in the 1970's and 80's when some of the greatest discoveries of fire science were made. I mean discoveries like the instabilities that lead to flashover, the role of radiant heat transfer in compartment fire dynamics or the definition of the flows through openings... things so fundamental to us toda...