Fire Science Show
Episodes
260 episodes
251 - Occupant loads in Car Parks with Mike Spearpoint
“Two people per parking space” is one of those default fire engineering inputs that we are very used to place into a model without really thinking much of it. But it is one of those defaults that show a huge richness once you dig deeper. Are al...
250 - Communicating fire science with construction professionals
A fire strategy can be technically correct, but if the team building the building never truly understands it - goals and objectives may be missed. For the 250th Fire Science Show, we slow down and talk about the craft of communicating fire scie...
249 - PBD of a large car park with EVs (Case study) with Jonathan Hodges, Mark McKinnon and Christian Rippe
From the SFPE Performance Based Design Conference in Singapore, we sit down with Jonathan Hodges and Mark McKinnon (UL Research Institutes) and Christian Rippe (Jensen Hughes) moments after their case study presentation to break down a modern p...
248 - JRC update on Fire Safety Engineering in Europe with Francesca Sciarretta
Fire safety in Europe is shaped in a challenging ecosystem - each member country owns its fire safety rules, yet the construction market, standards, and technical language are increasingly shared. I’m joined by Francesca Sciarretta, Scientific ...
247 - Calculation methods for fire resistance with Piotr Turkowski
You don’t always need a furnace to end up with a fire resistance rating, but you do need to understand what kind of “proof” you’re actually creating. I’m joined again by Dr. Piotr Turkowski from ITB to unpack calculation methods for fire resist...
246 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 20 - Fire Resistance Criteria with Piotr Turkowski
In this episode of fire fundamentals with the ITB fire resistance expert Piotr Turkowski we break down what a fire resistance rating criteria, and what the letters behind ratings like “REI 60” exactly stand for. We use lab experience to explain...
245 - FDS input file ASMR in forest
plume_rise_1.fds from the FDS Validation Guide (by NIST)&HEAD CHID='plume_rise_1', TITLE='Test plume...
244 - Decision making in large-scale evacuations with Erica Kuligowski
When one takes a decision to evacuate and starts moving, this is not the end of their decision-making process. Which route to take? Who to contact? How to arrange a place of shelter? Where to go first? Have I forgotten anything?&nbs...
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243 - 20 Informal Settlement Fire Experiments with Sam Stevens
A fire in an informal settlement is not just another small building fire. It can be the first domino in a fast-moving neighborhood event, and the little details like the wall material, roof material, door location, even a light breeze, can deci...
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242 - Learning from Earthquake Engineering with Negar Elhami-Khorasani and Justin Moresco
Being a part of broader civil engineering and built environment sciences, we have the unique opportunity to learn from other "sister" disciplines, rather than coming up with everything on our own. Especially, when those disciplines have 100+ ye...
241 - Opportunities with AI (in 2026) with MZ Naser
Is it too late to start with the AI in 2026? It wen't so far, does it still make sense to get interested in this technology?Absolutely. Today we sit down with MZ Naser of Clemson University to map a clear, useful path for engineers who w...
240 - Distressed by the AI stuff around
I’m not stressed by AI itself. I’m stressed by the insatiable greed of those who profit from it, even if it means sacrificing large parts of the population. I'm also stressed about how ruthlessly it can be abused to cause deliberate harm.
239 - Assessing post-fire structural damage in tunnels with Negar Elhami-Khorasani
A tunnel can ride out a fire without collapsing (or even critical visible structural damage), but a question whether it is safe for operations, and what is its long-term residual fire resistance remains. With repair bills being in high seven-ei...
238 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 19 - Defining fires in your models
Welcome to another fire fundamentals episode! Today we dig into how to place a fire in a model so results reflect real physics. From plume inputs to FDS burners, we show where HRRPUA, radiative fraction, and D* make or break smoke your calculat...
237 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 18 - Explosions with Ali Rangwala and Lorenz Boeck
Welcome back to Fire Fundamentals! Today with prof. Ali Rangwala from WPI and dr Lorenz Boeck from Rembe and WPI we take the world of explosion protection engineering. In this episode we touch:• distinguishing fires and explo...
236 - Fitting an efficient smoke control system in a confined space
A tight, historic cellar. Arched ceilings. Long corridors. Tiny shafts. We faced a design wall: to keep routes tenable, we needed twice the extraction that the building could carry. At that point, I've failed as an engineer - I've reached my li...
235 - A Repeating Tragedy with Lazaros Filippidis
A fire in a public venue happened again. No, I am not talking about the one in Switzerland. Since the tragic New Year celebration, we had one more near-miss in Madrid on Jan 10th 2026... In fact, who knows how many we actually had? It is a trag...
234 - Building a fire safety culture with George Boustras
Today we sit down with safety science leader George Boustras - a professor at European University Cyprus, UNESCO Chair in Disaster Risk Reduction and Societal Safety in South East Mediterranean and founder of Centre of Excellence in Risk & ...
233 - Safety as a moving target with Danielle Antonelis
Fires in informal settlements and humanitarian settings rarely make headlines, but they define daily life for millions. We sit down with Kindling founder Danielle Antonelis to trace a four-year arc from the non-profits early days and ideas to g...
232 - 2025 Wrap up episode - How fires turn into catastrophies
Catastrophes don’t happen because of one bad decision; they happen when many small assumptions fail at the same time. I take this opportunity to talk about my thoughts related to the Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong. I attempt to examine how a ...
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Merry Christmas everyone!
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 ...
231 - BESS explosion prevention and mitigation with Lorenz Boeck and Nick Bartlett
Today we cover another branch of safety of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), that is explosion prevention in mitigation. I always thought you can either end with a fire or with an explosion, and boy I was wrong... but we will go back to th...
230 - Wind driven conflagration experiments with Faraz Hedayati
A facility with 105 synchronized fans pushing hurricane-class wind across a full-size house while a live fire... This is not science fiction - this is a real research capacity that helps us re-shape our knowledge on the full scale building igni...
229 - Learning from 900 fires with Björn Maiworm
What can you learn after processing observations across 900 severe fires? A lot. Actually, I will send you to the paper straight away:Evaluating 900 Potentially Harmi...
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228 - Quantifying the expected utility of fire tests with Andrea Franchini
What do you expect from running a fire test? I would hope that it improves my state of knowledge. But do they do this? We often pursue them blindly, but it seems there is a way to do this in an informed way. In this episode we explo...
