Season 1
May 10, 2023
100 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 3 - Smoke plumes (and other flow phenomena) with Wojciech
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…
May 3, 2023
099 - Electric vehicle fires in tunnels with Peter Sturm
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…
Nov. 9, 2022
075 - Spacecraft fire safety with David Urban
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…
Nov. 2, 2022
074 - Engineering not magic, intumescent coatings with Andrea Lucherini
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.…
Oct. 19, 2022
072 - Extracting the secret of IMFSE from Bart Merci and Eulalia Planas
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…
Oct. 5, 2022
070 - Fire resistance is whatever you want it to be with Piotr Turkowski
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…
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. 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…
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…
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…
Jan. 26, 2022
035 - Fire safety as cornerstone of sustainability with Margaret McNamee
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 …
Jan. 12, 2022
033 - Science, theatre or engineering? Polish take on hot smoke test with Piotr Smardz and Janusz Paliszek
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 …
Dec. 15, 2021
031 - Suppressing tunnel fires with water mist with Johny Jessen
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…
Dec. 8, 2021
030 - Visibility Prediction Framework with Lukas Arnold
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…
Dec. 1, 2021
029 -Busses, flammability and an unknown force holding good solutions back... with Anja Hofmann-Böllinghaus
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…
Nov. 17, 2021
027 - Travelling fires with Guillermo Rein
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…
Nov. 3, 2021
025 - Structural fire engineering with engineered timber with Felix Wiesner
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 …
Oct. 13, 2021
022 - Combustion, fluid mechanics and fire safety engineering with Michael Gollner
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…
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 …
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 Cathelij…
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 rel…
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 buildin…
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 …