PODCAST · science
Fire Science Show
by 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 - OFR Consultants
Episodes
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272 - How to add wind to fire CFD analysis?
In this episode I take you into practicality of introducing wind into fire safety engineering considerations, and focus on it's implementation as a part of fire oriented CFD analyses. In here, we dig into why wind is tied to so many catastrophic fires, why firefighter safety is often shaped by...
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271 - pyFDS-Evac with Mohcine Chraibi
Smoke does not just slow people down, it changes what they believe is even possible. That simple idea is why we get so excited about pyFDS-Evac, an open source workflow that connects Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) results directly to modern evacuation modeling with JuPedSim. When the fire...
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270 - How the Cone Calorimeter took over with Marc Janssens
A tool doesn’t become a global workhorse because it’s clever. It becomes a workhorse when different labs can run it, calibrate it, compare it, and trust it. It is a very long road from the invention to widespread use. And I got the chance to discuss the path of how the Cone took off with Dr. Marc...
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269 - Fire investigations and the scientific method with Vincent Brannigan
A fire scene looks like a puzzle, but it’s a puzzle where the pieces melt, burn, and get hauled away before anyone can measure them. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, I sit down with Professor Vincent Brannigan to ask a questions - does a fire investigation truly use the scientific method, or are…
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268 - Is critical velocity that critical?
Critical velocity is supposed to be the clean moment when tunnel smoke control flips from unsafe to safe. But after too many real projects and too many review battles, I am very sure that such a single number cannot be a sole proxy of what is safe or unsafe... So why it has so much power over my...
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267 - Modelling Fire Growth with Stephen Welch
Pretty CFD flames are something we got used to, but they usually are a product of our design assumptions - the design fire. While they give us a lovely illusion of being "real" fires, predicting real compartment fire growth is a completely different game. We’re joined by Dr. Stephen Welch...
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266 - Compartment fire framework with Vinny Gupta
A compartment fire is more than just “a fire in a room.” The moment flames, smoke, and heat are trapped by walls and fed through openings, the physics changes and so do the hazards we design for. We sit down with Dr. Vinny Gupta (University of Waterloo) to rebuild compartment fire thinking from…
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265 - How fires can lead to a nuclear winter? with Stephen Welch
As a kid of 80s and 90s, a lot of the pop culture was around the post-apocalyptic scenarios following a nuclear exchange. I always thought a nuclear winter is a consequence of atomic bombs falling down, but now as a fire researcher I've learnt it is mostly about fires, after all. Today I sit down...
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264 - Engineering Firebrand Showers with Samuel L. Manzello
A wind-driven ember shower is a key wildfire exposures a building can face, but we have not yet fully understood or accounted for them in making our communities wildfire resilient. Today we sit down with Samuel L. Manzello of Tohoku University and Reax Engineering to unpack how in the last 20…
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263 - Developments in modelling WUI fires with Arnaud Trouvé
Wildland-Urban Interface fires are a class of fires that deserves own models, own studies and a lot of research focus. This is what I discuss today with prof. Arnaud Trouvé from the University of Maryland, shortly before he has given his plenary talk at the recent Combustion Symposium in Kyoto.…
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262 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 22 - Optical diagnostics in fire with Elizabeth Weckman
In todays episode of fire fundamentals we talk with Professor Elizabeth Weckman from University of Waterloo about advanced optical diagnostics that let fire researchers read temperature, chemistry, soot, and velocity from light without relying only on probes. We break down what cameras, infrared...
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261 - The story of the Cone Calorimeter with Vyto Babrauskas
The cone calorimeter sits in thousands of labs, shaping what we know about flammability, smoke production, and heat release rate. This essential piece of equipment comes with quite a story of how it was engineered or why its “obvious” design choices were anything but obvious. We wanted that…
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260 - Fire safety in a carbon budget with Cecilia Wetterqvist and Axel Mossberg
A carbon budget can feel like a hard wall in modern building design, and once you treat CO2 as currency, everything starts competing for a slice of it. The problem is that fire safety systems often show up in those spreadsheets only as a penalty: extra embodied carbon for sprinklers, alarms, and...
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259 - Communicating fire science with politicians with Birgitte Messerschmidt
Fire safety is a tough “product” to sell because the best outcome looks like nothing happened. That’s exactly why we sat down with Birgitte Messerschmidt (NFPA) to talk about communicating fire science to politicians, regulators, grant bodies, and other people in positions of power who can…
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258 - e-mobility fires in trains with Adam Barowy
A battery fire on a train is not “just another small fire.” When a lithium-ion battery in an e-scooter or e-bike fails, the rail car can behave like a long pipe that moves smoke fast, limits escape options, and compresses decision-making into minutes. We sit down with Adam Barowy from UL Research...
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257 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 21 - Radiation with Simo Hostikka
In this episode of fire fundamentals we sit down with Professor Simo Hostikka from Aalto University to cover radiation in fires, both from the angle of physical phenomena and ways to model it. In this episode we cover following topics: feel less mysterious, from blackbody basics and role of...
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256 - Modelling turbulent combustion in fire CFD with Bart Merci
While we can get pretty far with a very simple approximation of what a fire is in our fire cfd, at some point our simplications are not enough. And there is a plenty of features and phenomena, for which we simply need a better tool to handle - carbon monoxide, soot, extinction, flashover…
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255 - Timber load bearing capacity in fire from nano- to megascale with Felix Wiesner
A timber column can survive the heating phase of a fire resistance test and still collapse later, after the flames are gone. We know there is so much more to structures in fires than the test demonstrates, but how much exactly do we know about timber nowadays? In this episode we try to dive…
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254 - Communicating fire science with firefighters, with Steve Kerber
Fire science should have its place at the fireground, yet I've learned how hard it is to communicate it with the key stakeholder - the firefighters. It's not my isolated experience, and that tension drives our conversation with Steve Kerber, Vice President at UL Research Institutes Fire Safety...
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253 - NERIS - the paradigm shift for the US fire data collection with Craig Weinschenk
A national fire statistics system that updates in weeks is not a statistics system, it is a history lesson. We talk with Dr. Craig Weinschenk from UL Research Institutes - Fire Safety Research Institute about NERIS (the National Emergency Response Information System) and why it represents a real...
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252 - Substantiating Fire Models with Craig Hofmeister and Bryan Klein
Jumping straight to CFD has become the default move in fire safety engineering, but that habit can quietly weaken our work: more inputs, more assumptions, more ways to be wrong, and often no clearer link to the actual design question. We sit down with Craig Hofmeister and Brian Klein to unpack a...
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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 all parking spaces taken? Are people in their cars?…
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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 science to construction professionals so that the intent...
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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 parking garage fire engineering workflow with a huge...
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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 Project Officer at the European Commission’s Joint...
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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 resistance and the real-world chain from engineering...
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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 where the standards are clear, where they are oddly...
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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 rise height in stable atmosphere' / &MESH IJK=50,52,50, XB=-50.,50.,-52.,52.,0.,100., MULT_ID='mesh1' / &MULT ID='mesh1', DZ=100., K_UPPER=1 / &MESH IJK=50,52,50, XB= 50.,250.,-104.,104.,0.,200.,...
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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? I previously discussed the decision-making with Erica Kuligowski…
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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 decide what happens next. I’m joined by Dr. Sam Stevens...
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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+ years of experience in investigating stuff that has...
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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 want results without the hype. We start with the basics -...
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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. In this episode I'm not taking you into world of fire...
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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-eight figures, this is more than just a theoretical...
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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 calculations. Things considered in this episode: • why…
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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 explosions by time scale and damage mode • taxonomy of explosions by energy...
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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 limit and could not find a solution. Some time later, a...
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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 tragedy that feels like it is playing on repeat... In…
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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 & Decision Sciences (CERIDES). With George we try to…
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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 grounded results: a global shelter database,...
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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 routine ignition escalated into hundreds of…
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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 report on open car park fires, which we were able to...
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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 this later. Now I bring on Dr. Lorenz Boeck (REMBE) and...
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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 ignition, fire spread, and failure. That’s the stage at...
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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 Harming Fires in Germany: Is the Prescriptive Building Code Effective? German Fire Departments Assessed Fire Safety Measures in…
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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 explore a rigorous, practical way to select and design experiments by...
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227 - The differences between EV and ICEV fires in car parks
A viral clip of an EV igniting was what started my worries about safety in car parks I have been designing. Are we ready for fast growing fires? Since 2019 I've learned and studied a lot, I've relaxed on some aspects of it and was able to identify they areas where a lot more engineering...
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226 - New Swiss fire safety code with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki
It is a massive effort to rewrite a national fire safety code around measurable risk, explicit targets, and cost-effectiveness. But sometimes, there are great reasons to do so. In this episode, together with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki we take you inside Switzerland’s sweeping...
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225 - Battery Energy Storage Systems with Noah Ryder
Demand for the energy storage is as high as ever, and is about to triple-quadruple. The development of technology is at unprecedented phase, and even within a single project you may face different cell, battery or container generations. This pace reshapes how we think about battery energy storage...
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224 - Navigating the complexities to change our field - a roundtable with Steve McGuirk and Brian Meacham
This week, in the Fire Science Show, we host a roundtable discussion on complexities in fire safety science and engineering. Most safety failures don’t come from a single mistake—they emerge when people, technology, and institutions misalign. In an ever-changing field in which complexities just…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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 - OFR Consultants
HOSTED BY
Wojciech Wegrzynski
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Fire Science Show have?
Fire Science Show currently has 281 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Fire Science Show about?
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...
How often does Fire Science Show release new episodes?
Fire Science Show publishes regularly with 281 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Fire Science Show?
You can listen to Fire Science Show on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Fire Science Show?
Fire Science Show is created and hosted by Wojciech Wegrzynski.
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