Episodes

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 Ga…
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 brillia…
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. …
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 compartme…
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_analys…
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 …
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 Unive…
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 engi…
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 …
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 communicat…
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 sho…
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 can…
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 n…
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 Londo…
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 suspen…
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 a…
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 comp…
April 6, 2022

045 - Foundations of fire safety with Ruben van Coile and Danny Hopkin

How does one decide when a building is fire safe? That is a real hell of a question to answer! Is it when no harm can occur? But such a condition can never be fulfilled... there is always a meteor waiting around the corner t…
March 30, 2022

044 - Improving fire safety of battery systems with Ofodike Ezekoye

Since Episode 6, the fire safety of battery systems was not very much visible in the show - a good time to change that! And we do this with a true legend of fire safety - Ofodike Ezekoye. In the last year, I have learnt a l…
March 23, 2022

043 - Some neglected areas in fire science with Vyto Babrauskas

It is always a pleasure to interview a true legend of fire safety. And when the topic of the interview is their thoughts on neglected areas of our discipline, based on almost five decades of experience? This must end up grea…
March 16, 2022

042 - Unsafe environment of post fire scenes with Gavin Horn

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…