Fire Science Show

248 - JRC update on Fire Safety Engineering in Europe with Francesca Sciarretta

22 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Fire safety in Europe is shaped in a challenging ecosystem - each member country owns its fire safety rules, yet the construction market, standards, a...

247 - Calculation methods for fire resistance with Piotr Turkowski

15 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 cr...

246 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 20 - Fire Resistance Criteria with Piotr Turkowski

08 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of fire fundamentals with the ITB fire resistance expert Piotr Turkowski we break down what a fire resistance rating criteria, and wha...

245 - FDS input file ASMR in forest

01 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

plume_rise_1.fds from the FDS Validation Guide (by NIST)&HEAD CHID='plume_rise_1',  TITLE='Test plume rise height in stable atmosp...

244 - Decision making in large-scale evacuations with Erica Kuligowski

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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? H...

243 - 20 Informal Settlement Fire Experiments with Sam Stevens

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 litt...

242 - Learning from Earthquake Engineering with Negar Elhami-Khorasani and Justin Moresco

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Being a part of broader civil engineering and built environment sciences, we have the unique opportunity to learn from other "sister" discip...

241 - Opportunities with AI (in 2026) with MZ Naser

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

240 - Distressed by the AI stuff around

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 p...

239 - Assessing post-fire structural damage in tunnels with Negar Elhami-Khorasani

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 wh...

238 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 19 - Defining fires in your models

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 F...

237 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 18 - Explosions with Ali Rangwala and Lorenz Boeck

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 protec...

236 - Fitting an efficient smoke control system in a confined space

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A tight, historic cellar. Arched ceilings. Long corridors. Tiny shafts. We faced a design wall: to keep routes tenable, we needed twice the extraction...

235 - A Repeating Tragedy with Lazaros Filippidis

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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 nea...

234 - Building a fire safety coulture with George Boustras

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today we sit down with safety science leader George Boustras - a professor at European University Cyprus, UNESCO Chair in Disaster Risk Reduction and ...

233 - Safety as a moving target with Danielle Antonelis

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Fires in informal settlements and humanitarian settings rarely make headlines, but they define daily life for millions. We sit down with Kindling foun...

232 - 2025 Wrap up episode - How fires turn into catastrophies

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 tal...

Merry Christmas everyone!

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

231 - BESS explosion prevention and mitigation with Lorenz Boeck and Nick Bartlett

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we cover another branch of safety of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), that is explosion prevention in mitigation. I always thought you can...

230 - Wind driven conflagration experiments with Faraz Hedayati

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

229 - Learning from 900 fires with Björn Maiworm

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 P...

228 - Quantifying the expected utility of fire tests with Andrea Franchini

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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, b...

227 - The differences between EV and ICEV fires in car parks

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

226 - New Swiss fire safety code with Gianluca De Sanctis and Sofia Kourgiantaki

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It is a massive effort to rewrite a national fire safety code around measurable risk, explicit targets, and cost-effectiveness. But sometimes, there a...

225 - Battery Energy Storage Systems with Noah Ryder

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

224 - Navigating the complexities to change our field - a roundtable with Steve McGuirk and Brian Meacham

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, in the Fire Science Show, we host a roundtable discussion on complexities in fire safety science and engineering.Most safety failures don’...

223 - Heat-induced delamination in CLT with Antonela Čolić

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we invite dr. Antonela Čolić from the OFR Consultants, to break down the performance of adhesives used in C...

222 - Integrating WUI risk management and fire safety engineering with Pascale Vacca

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we try to demonstrate another step in integrating fire engineering into WUI risk management, and vice versa. These two areas together ...

221 - Fire experiments at the ISS (SoFIE-MIST) with Michael Gollner

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fire doesn’t play by Earth’s rules once you leave gravity behind. In this deep dive with Professor Michael Gollner, we unpack what the recent expe...

220 - Test vs experiment with David Morrisset

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we dive into the ap between standardized tests and experiments, trying to figure out (a) is there a difference and (b) if there is, co...

219 - Giving back with the SFPE Foundation - with Leslie Marshall

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we give focus to the SFPE Foundation – a catalyst transforming how fire engineering research is funded, conducted, and shared globa...

218 - Fire decay and cooling phases with Andrea Lucherini

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when the flames die down? It's a question rarely addressed in fire engineering, yet the decay and cooling phases of fires can be mor...

217 - Things that go wrong with the smoke control and how we fix them

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In my personal view, an alarming truth about building fire safety lies in the gap between what's designed and what actually works in a building. ...

216 - What do we measure and how? with David Morrisset

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when we stick a thermocouple into a fire? The answer is surprisingly complex and has profound implications for fire safety engineering. I...

215 - Lessons from the 2018 Camp Fire with Eric D. Link

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The devastating 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California serves as a haunting reminder of how rapidly wildfires can overwhelm communities. We have not k...

214 - Thermal Imagers with Martin Veit

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The world looks entirely different through a thermal camera lens, especially in a fire scenario. These devices reveal harsh temperature gradients betw...

213 - Setting up your own chatbot with Ruggiero Lovreglio and Amir Rafe

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The AI revolution has arrived, but fire safety engineers face a critical dilemma: how to leverage powerful AI tools while protecting confidential proj...

212 - A glossary for evacuation with Enrico Ronchi and Ezel Üsten

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When experts from different disciplines attempt to collaborate on complex problems, such as evacuation modelling, we often discover that we're no...

211 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 17 - Detecting fires

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In episode 17 of the Fire Fundamentals, we delve into the fire detection technology. Fire detection forms the critical foundation of all active fire p...

210 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 16 - Turbulence with Randy McDermott

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the 16th part of the Fire Fundamentals series, we invite Randy McDermott from NIST to join us for a deep dive into turbulence and its critical role...

209 - Updates from the SFPE with Chris Jelenewicz

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast episode, I invited Chris Jelenewicz, the CEO of SFPE, to bring me up to date on the society. The SFPE Handbook on Fire Protection Engi...

208 - The basics of fire water supply with Szymon Kokot

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Water might seem like the simplest part of firefighting – just point and spray, right? Well, as you can imagine, the reality is a bit more complex. ...

207 - Fire Safety of Balconies with Mike Spearpoint and Konstantinos Chotzoglou

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a consequence of the Grenfell Tower disaster, some strong legislation was proposed, such as a combustible ban on building walls. This, however, aff...

206 - Fire Engineering Infrastructural Projects with Mukesh Tomar

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today I'm taking you for a sightseeing trip to see what fire safety looks like beyond our usual office, residential buildings and car parks. Fire...

205 - FDS maintenance and development with Randy McDermott

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Randy McDermott takes us behind the scenes of fire science's most critical software tool in this conversation about the Fire Dynamic Simulator...

204 - 4th Birthday of the Podcast. Some stories about the past and the future

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Four years ago, what began as a mission to preserve valuable fire safety engineering conversations has grown into a fairly large platform connecting p...

203 - The lessons from repeating Jin's experiment on visibility in smoke

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I've finally done it. We've repeated Jin's experiment! I thought I knew-it-all about that experiment, but boy... knowing and doing it a...

202 - Designing fire safety with firefighters in mind

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The gap between fire safety engineering and firefighting operations creates a profound challenge that affects building safety worldwide. Even experien...

201 - The last fire - a novel set in industrial fire engineering with Joaquim Casal

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when a lifetime of studying industrial fire hazards meets the creative mind of a novelist? In this conversation with Professor Joaquim Ca...

200 - Façade flammability across scales and standards with Guillermo Rein and Matt Bonner

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 200! And for this special episode,  I've travelled to London to interview Prof. Guillermo Rein and Dr Matt Bonner on a piece of research...

199 - Commercial Timber Guidebook with Danny Hopkin and Luis Gonzalez Avila

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

198 - Waste and recycling fires and how to fight them with Ryan Fogelman

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The devastating impact of waste and recycling industry fires costs approximately $2.5 billion annually in the US and Canada alone, with lithium-ion ba...

197 - Fire spread through external walls pt. 2 with FSRI

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When wildfire threatens neighbourhoods with closely-spaced homes, what determines whether flames leap from one structure to the next? The FSRI researc...

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

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast episode, we host Rebekah Schrader, Joseph Willi, Daniel Gorham and Gavin Horn, all from the FSRI, to cover their recent experimental r...

195 - Fire Safety Cases with Chris Mayfield and Martyn Ramsden

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The UK's Building Safety Act requires high-risk buildings to maintain comprehensive fire safety cases - living documents that identify hazards, m...

194 - Playing with batteries with Xinyan Huang

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Xinyan Huang from Hong Kong Polytechnic University shares his expertise on battery fires and the various experimental methods researchers us...

193 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 15 - Extinguishing systems with Bogdan Racięga

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to another Fire Fundamentals. This time the episode is focused on various extinguishing technologies. Invited guest - Bogdan Racięga, Directo...

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

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jet-fan systems effectively control smoke in car parks by creating directed airflows that transport smoke from one point to another, similar to how lo...

191 - Committee participation with Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode explores the invaluable contributions of community participation in fire safety technical committees. Joining committees is not just abou...

190 - Car park fires review with Zahir

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With the emergence of electric vehicles, fire safety and dynamics have entered a new domain, raising crucial questions about existing protocols, desig...

189 - Simple things that work

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 tech...

188 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 13 - Porous solid fuels

11 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

187 - Smouldering of preserved timber with Wenxuan Wu

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

186 - Egressibility: a paradigm shift in evacuation research with Enrico Ronchi

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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-eva...

185 - Recap on wildfire science

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 bac...

184 - Cost-benefit analysis in structural fire safety with Thomas Gernay and Chenzi Ma

15 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode delves into the financial aspects of fire safety in building design, highlighting the balance between cost and effectiveness. My guests -...

183 - Innovation and fire safety with Vincent Brannigan

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 th...

182 - Bias in fire research

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Fire is a highly contextualized problem; therefore, there is no such thing as an unbiased or "objective" fire experiment. It is a thing that...

181 - Regulatory regimes with Vincent Brannigan

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 wit...

180 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 12 - Pressurization systems

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of fire science fundamentals, we cover the pressurisation systems. These are smoke control solutions used to prevent smoke from access...

179 - Assurance in fire safety with Abhishek Chhabra

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Discover the hidden backbone of fire safety with assurance industry expert Abhishek Chhabra as we unravel the essential frameworks that keep our build...

178 - Origin stories of fire prevention and firefighting with Michał Stachowicz

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Happy 200th birthday, Scottish Fire and Rescue Services!!! I'm a bit late to the party. Still, I've done my best to celebrate your anniversa...

177 - Physics-Based Modelling of Fire Spread with Francesco Restuccia

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Wildfire modelling is quite complicated when you wish to integrate different fuel packages with different properties in 'real' environmental...

176 - The Myth of Panic with Daniel Nilsson

06 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

You are not supposed to use the word 'panic' in the context of human behaviour in fires, yet this episode contains 196 instances of it. Why?...

175 - Changes in the UK fire regulations with Dame Judith Hackitt

30 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Grenfell Tower tragedy has triggered a Public Inquiry (which just published their final report), and concurrently - a review of the UK Building Re...

174 - My predictions for AI in fire

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

AI is changing the world. But can artificial intelligence truly revolutionize fire safety engineering? In this episode I took out my crystal ball, and...

173 - Pathway to scalable fire CFD

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

CFD is the most talked-over subject in the Fire Science Show. There are two reasons for that: one, it is interesting and relevant for so many of the A...

172 - Lessons from mass timber experiments with Danny Hopkin

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One could argue full-scale experiments on fire phenomena are the most enriching for our knowledge as the fire community. The costs associated with the...

171 - Exploring Water Mist Systems with Max Lakkonen

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I approach modelling water mist with caution. Not that I don't understand it, but because I lack clarity in the goals and objectives, as well I&a...

170 - Integrating Fire Safety and Security Objectives with Stewe Gwynne and Aoife Hunt

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What happens to controlled doors when a fire is detected in the building? They unlock. Elevators? They go down. People are guided somewhere, and the f...

169 - Engineering car parks for EV's with Ali Ashrafi and Pawel Woelke

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

EVs are becoming more of a 'normal' part of fire safety engineering rather than an 'exotic problem'. I've invited two colleag...

168 - Fires in Waste Industry with Ragni Fjellgaard Mikalsen

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Fires in the waste industry are not discussed much unless one sees a giant smoke plume in the media, followed by advice to close your windows. In thes...

167 - CFD for consequences and fire growth with Jonathan Hodges

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we talk with Jonathan Hodges of the Jensen Hughes on his experience with using advanced modelling in the realm of fire safety engineer...

166 - Bio-based insulation with Patrick Sudhoff

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the everchanging world every now and then we get a new driver, that dictates most of our choices. In the current built environment and building ind...

165 - Best Practice vs. Appropriate Practice with Arnold Dix

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is the "best practice" always the best approach to solving an engineering problem? Can we consider "best" and "appropriate&qu...

164 - Experiences with AI with Xinyan Huang

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The last time I had Xinyan on the show was in 2021, and we were all excited about the possibilities that AI could bring to Fire Safety Engineering and...

163 - Fire Fundamentals pt 11 - Soot in Fire Safety Engineering

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Soot is perhaps the most complex product of combustion, and at the same time one of the most profound for our everyday fire safety engineering. The to...

162 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 9 - Jin's experiment on visibility in smoke

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Experiments that Changed Fire Science we cover T. Jin’s experiments on the visibility in smoke – two experiments carried out in...

161 - Community evacuation with Enrico Ronchi and Max Kinateder

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is evacuation of a community during a wildfire largely different from evacuation of a building? How much of the knowledge from the building fires is d...

160 - Fire Fundamentals pt 10 - Flame Spread with David Morrisset

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the episode 10 of fire fundamentals together with David Morrisset, a nearly graduated PhD student from the University of Edinburgh, we explore the ...

159 - The WUI Problem with Michele Steinberg and Birgitte Messerschmidt

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With two Directors at NFPA - Michele Steinberg and Birgitte Messerschmidt, I'm trying to find an answer to a burning question - "what really...

158 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 9 - Know your boundaries (in CFD)

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's Fire Science Show, we talk about how boundary conditions can make or break your fire simulation models. We'll explore boundary co...

157 - Revising Critical Velocity with Conrad Stacey and Michael Beyer

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A critical velocity episode... who would have thought? Even though I'm not an enthusiast of this approach, I have to admire the new science and r...

156 - Trigger Boundaries with Harry Mitchell and Nick Kalogeropoulos

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What if you could predict the last possible time to evacuate your community before a wildfire wreaks havoc? What if you had that knowledge years befor...

155 - New Guideline for PV Fire Safety with Grunde Jomaas

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Misconceptions in fire science are a strange thing. You present countless proof, publish research papers, and carry conversations, and yet… they liv...

154 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 8 - Compartment Fire

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Happy birthday, Fire Science Show! On the 3rd Anniversary of the podcast launch, I'm thrilled to deliver an episode on one of the most fascinati...

404 - Short technical break

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I'm very sorry, but I could not finalize the episode to air this week in time, and in consequence, I have chosen to have a short technical break ...

153 - Fire Safety Engineer of the Future is a Great Communicator

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A few weeks ago in Copenhagen, stepping onto the stage to open the SFPE Fire Safety Conference and Expo on Performance-Based Design, I took a bit of a...

152 - Why we need good standards with Björn Sundström

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we dive into standardization efforts for fire safety. An entire universe of testing laboratories, committees, auditors, and certifier...

151 - Elevator evacuation with Axel Mossberg

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The fire is detected in the building. Please evacuate. Do not use the elevator.I’ve heard this emergency message perhaps a thousand times. It is dee...