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 not mean we should not care. Firefighters are important actors in the fire safe world, and we cannot design buildings as if they were not. In the end, the probability of you being in a fire is fairly low, while for a firefighter this P = 1. Our decisions shape the building environment, which acts as a battleground for them, affects their actions and options. And we can design buildings better!My today's guest, dr Ali Ashrafi of Thornton Tomasetti is passionate about building safer buildings. Ali highlights the key elements of making the building safer for firefighters, with a great focus on the structural resilience of the buildings. Highlighting the performance-based design approach he claims that we can build not only better but also cheaper at the same time. Well, that's kind of a win-win situation... If you want to learn more, this episode is for you.Learn more about Ali at:https://www.thorntontomasetti.com/person/ali-ashrafiAnd connect with him through LinkedInFollowup material:A presentation about Performance-Based Design of Buildings in Fire: Implications for FirefightingPerformance-based structural fire design: Exemplar Design guide developed by ASCE and Charles Pankow FoundationDan Madrzykowski Using Fire Dynamics Research to Save FirefightersStephen Kerber, Dan Madrzykowski Fire Behavior and Tactical ConsiderationsNIST & UL Research on Fire Behavior & Fireground Tactics----The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.