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PODCAST

Fire Science Show

Wojciech Wegrzynski

Fire Science Show is connecting fire researchers and practitioners with a society of fire engineers, firefighters, architects, designers and all others, who are genuinely interested in creating a fire-safe future. Through interviews with a diverse group of experts, we present the history of our field as well as the most novel advancements. We hope the Fire Science Show becomes your weekly source of fire science knowledge and entertainment. Produced in partnership with the Diamond Sponsor of the show

science physics

All Episodes

61:07

199 - Commercial Timber Guidebook with Danny Hopkin...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/04/30

We know a whole lot more about mass timber in fire than we did a few years ago (even when I’ve just started the podcast 199 episodes back …). But is this knowledge widely used in engineering practice? Is it used in the same way by different stakeholders? Definitely not. This is why to move timber into something we would consider “new normal”, we need more than research. We need a consensus on how to apply the outcomes of our research in practice. And this is this podcast episode. Built by Nat...

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60:19

198 - Waste and recycling fires and how to fight them...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/04/23

The devastating impact of waste and recycling industry fires costs approximately $2.5 billion annually in the US and Canada alone, with lithium-ion batteries causing roughly 50% of these incidents. In this episode with Ryan Fogelman from Fire Rover, we discuss: • Understanding the scale of waste facility fires and why traditional fire protection methods often fail in these environments • How lithium-ion batteries have created a "hockey stick" rise in fire incidents since 2015 • The "vape effe...

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65:33

FSRI external walls pt 2

Fire Science Show ·

2025/04/16

When wildfire threatens neighbourhoods with closely-spaced homes, what determines whether flames leap from one structure to the next? The FSRI research team - Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn - joins us to unveil their experimental series that methodically dissects the pathways through which fire spreads between buildings. The team walks us through their massive outdoor experimental setup, where they created controlled compartment fires and measured their impact o...

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48:36

196 - Fire spread through external walls pt. 1 with FSRI

Fire Science Show ·

2025/04/09

In this podcast episode, we host Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn, all from the FSRI, to cover their recent experimental research on fire spread through external walls. This is part 1 of the interview - the background, rationale and context. In part 2, we cover the experiments themselves, findings and actionable guidance from the experiments. This research is conducted within the context of structure-to-structure fire spread, potentially in urban conflagration scen...

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59:41

195 - Fire Safety Cases with Chris Mayfield and...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/04/02

The UK's Building Safety Act requires high-risk buildings to maintain comprehensive fire safety cases - living documents that identify hazards, mitigate risks, and establish clear accountability for building safety. This is the subject of my discussion with Chris Mayfield and Martyn Ramsden from OFR. • Safety cases differ from fire strategies by being owned by the building's accountable person rather than consultants • The Principal Accountable Person must take responsibility for preventing ...

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51:22

194 - Playing with batteries with Xinyan Huang

Fire Science Show ·

2025/03/26

Professor Xinyan Huang from Hong Kong Polytechnic University shares his expertise on battery fires and the various experimental methods researchers use to trigger thermal runaway events under controlled conditions. • Terminology matters - "thermal runaway" more accurately describes battery failure than "ignition" as the critical reactions occur inside the cell • Nail penetration testing is widely used but contains surprising complexities, including nail material, penetration depth, velocity ...

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53:09

193 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 15 - Extinguishing...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/03/19

Welcome to another Fire Fundamentals. This time the episode is focused on various extinguishing technologies. Invited guest - Bogdan Racięga, Director at Baltic Fire Laboratory and expert in fire protection systems breaks down the fundamental differences between suppression and extinction technologies and how they work in real-world applications. Clear distinction between suppression systems (control fires while meeting temperature criteria) and extinction systems (must completely extinguis...

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42:55

192 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 14 - Jet fan systems for...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/03/12

Jet-fan systems effectively control smoke in car parks by creating directed airflows that transport smoke from one point to another, similar to how longitudinal ventilation works in tunnels. These systems offer cost-effectiveness and simplicity by eliminating ductwork while providing powerful smoke management capabilities when properly designed and understood. • Jet Fans create momentum transfer through air entrainment rather than directly moving smoke • Two distinct operational modes exist:...

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58:17

191 - Committee participation with Birgitte...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/03/05

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...

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51:40

190 - Car park fires review with Zahir

Fire Science Show ·

2025/02/26

With the emergence of electric vehicles, fire safety and dynamics have entered a new domain, raising crucial questions about existing protocols, design fires and data gaps. Today, our Wojciech Wegrzyński welcomes Zahir, Associate Prof. at University Putra Malaysia, to discuss the findings from their latest papers, compare methodologies, and highlight the differences between traditional combustion engines and electric vehicles. The conversation covers various topics, from the nuances of...

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42:20

189 - Simple things that work

Fire Science Show ·

2025/02/19

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 an...

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57:06

188 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 13 - Porous solid fuels

Fire Science Show ·

2025/02/11

In this episode of Fire Fundamentals, together with Dr Sara McAllister, we dwell on how stuff burns... And it is far from an easy question. While the general theme of the episodes is porous fuels, we discuss them from different angles, highlighting the similarities and differences between foamed and permeable materials. In this episode, we cover: role of permeability, entrainment and forced flows through porous fuel beds;differences in physical properties between porous materials and their bu...

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54:32

187 - Smouldering of preserved timber with Wenxuan Wu

Fire Science Show ·

2025/02/05

Can a tiny amount of bio-protective coating completely change the fire behaviour of mass timber logs? If you asked me that some time ago, I would say it would probably be neutral. Can a 0.5 x 0.5 m free-standing log of timber smoulder through without any external exposure to fire? If you asked me that some time ago, I would say no, and base that on observations of dozens of logs like this. Yet, in Australia they’ve burned. And the hypothesis was that it has something to do with the preservati...

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61:58

186 - Egressibility: a paradigm shift in evacuation...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/01/29

If we truly want to account for the population at a disadvantage in evacuation, there is only this much we can do with the current approach... Pre-evacuation time distributions, walking speeds, and so on only tell us a part of the story - the story of your average person within an average population, with an average walking speed and average response. While these models are undoubtedly useful in engineering, there is perhaps a better way.My friend and guest Enrico Ronchi is trying to find thi...

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65:09

185 - Recap on wildfire science

Fire Science Show ·

2025/01/22

In the aftermath of the LA Pacific Palisades Fire, I've decided that instead of inviting one expert to discuss the event, I will give a voice back to those who already participated in the Fire Science Show and explained this fire (months and years before it happened).In this episode, we recap Wildland-Urban Interface fires, with a focus on the "urban" part. We cover conditions in which such fires may happen and factors that contribute. We discuss the role of community preparedness and pathway...

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60:52

184 - Cost-benefit analysis in structural fire safety...

Fire Science Show ·

2025/01/15

This episode delves into the financial aspects of fire safety in building design, highlighting the balance between cost and effectiveness. My guests - prof. Thomas Gernay and Chenzi Ma from Johns Hopkins University share insights from their NIST-sponsored research project on cost-benefit analysis and loss estimation for structural fire safety. In the discussion, we explore the differences between prescriptive and performance-based approaches, discussing insights from a comprehensive analysis ...

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60:25

183 - Innovation and fire safety with Vincent Brannigan

Fire Science Show ·

2025/01/08

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 ...

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45:04

182 - Bias in fire research

Fire Science Show ·

2024/12/18

Fire is a highly contextualized problem; therefore, there is no such thing as an unbiased or "objective" fire experiment. It is a thing that many researchers would understand but is very rarely pointed out. Where it is not a problem for fire science (more like a 'feature'), it may become one when the results of scientific experiments are directly applied to real-world engineering cases.In this episode, I cover biases in research, from general ones to highly specific fire safety engineering bi...

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57:20

181 - Regulatory regimes with Vincent Brannigan

Fire Science Show ·

2024/12/11

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 devel...

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48:20

180 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 12 - Pressurization systems

Fire Science Show ·

2024/12/04

In this episode of fire science fundamentals, we cover the pressurisation systems. These are smoke control solutions used to prevent smoke from accessing protected spaces, by creating an overpressure in those spaces. Although the idea is very simple, its execution is far from that. Pressurization systems need to work in two distinct states – when all doors to the protected space are closed (over pressurization state), and when some openings are open (flow-path state). In this episode, we...

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227 results

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