Fire Science Show

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 question... In this episode we dig into the hard middle ground of fire damage post mild/large fires, and cover where modeling and fire science can help reducing the uncertainty and guiding decisions. With Professor Negar Elhami-Khorasani from University at Buffalo, we map how ventilation settings, tunnel slope, and fuel push temperatures into either safe or punishing regimes, and why spalling can turn a survivable event into a structural headache. We break spalling down to first principles—vapor pressure, thermal gradients, and restraint—then translate that into a practical method: update the section as concrete “disappears” so the thermal boundary moves and heat penetrates realistically. From there, we track damage you can act on: concrete volumes beyond 300°C, steel temperatures that risk incomplete recovery, and bond loss that forces major repairs. Just as important, we model through cooling, when heat keeps migrating and residual capacity sinks. The result isn’t a guess; it’s a bounded map of what to replace and why. We also take on the tactical questions that matter: How long would an extreme fire need to threaten collapse, given different soils and depths? What’s the real value of polypropylene fibers in high-strength mixes? How should owners structure a fast, post-fire workflow—quick checks for reopening within days, followed by a deeper, simulation-informed durability plan? By pairing observed spalling and known operations with targeted heat transfer and mechanical analysis, you can reconstruct the event, communicate risk clearly, and spend repair budgets where they return the most resilience. If you care about structural fire engineering, tunnel safety, spalling mitigation, and performance-based design that reduces downtime, this conversation delivers a roadmap you can use. Further reading - recommended papers by Negar Elhami-Khorasani and her team: Structural fire behavior of tunnel sections: assessing the effects of full burnout and spalling effects Numerical modeling of the fire behavior of reinforced concrete tunnel slabs during heating and cooling Fire Damage Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Tunnel Linings ---- 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.

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 defining the design HRR is separate from placing the source • what a flame is and why we cannot resolve its chemistry • plume models compared by inputs: perimeter, Q, Qc • entrainment, virtual origin, and effective diameter • realistic HRRPUA ranges for building-scale fires • radiative vs convective fractions and why they matter • zone model linkage to plumes for smoke control • volumetric smoke and heat sources for CFD: volume, placement, and limits • fuel-based fires in CFD and oxygen constraints • growth modeling via area expansion vs flux ramping • soot yields, heat of combustion, and visibility • D* and meshing guidance for credible resolution • why predictive fire spread modelling for design use does not really exist... Resources, resources! G. Vigne et al. "Review and Validation of the current Smoke Plume Entrainment Models for Large-Volume Buildings"W. Węgrzyński & M. Konecki "Influence of the fire location and the size of a compartment on the heat and smoke flow out of the compartmentM. Bonner et al. "Visual Fire Power: An Algorithm for Measuring Heat Release Rate of Visible Flames in Camera Footage, with Applications in Facade Fire Experiments"Episode 100 - Smoke plumes! G. Heskestad "Fire Plumes, Flame Height, and Air Entrainment" from SFPE Handbook ---- 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.

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 density and deposition time • hybrid mixtures in coal mines and turbulent burning velocity • severity metrics for gases and dust deflagration index for reactivity • explosion sphere testing, ignition positioning, and model limits • ignition sensitivity minimum ignition energy and hot surface risks • prevention via ventilation, inerting, and ignition control • protection through deflagration vents, isolation, and external hazards • pressure vessel bursts, inspections, and rupture disks • transport scenarios vapor clouds and BLEVEs with fireball correlations We also delve into future directions for explosion research: • emerging risks hydrogen, BESS, ammonia, and layered defenses • space and microgravity impacts on dust and flammability Check out the XPE programme at WPI, and find more informations on how to enroll at: https://www.wpi.edu/academics/study/master-science-explosion-protection-engineering I have also received some good listening material, that you could follow up with: https://www.wpi.edu/listen/wpi-podcast/e18-explosion-protection-engineering-hannah-murray-explosion-protection-engineering-phd-candidatehttps://dustsafetyscience.com/explosion-protection-engineering-program/---- 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.

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 solution appeared in my head from nowhere —what if the fan changed with the fire? Not in a crude on-off way, but by tracking temperature, exploiting density changes, and chasing constant mass flow instead of fixed volume. We unpack the moment this clicked, the fan physics behind it, and why hotter smoke can actually make extraction easier if you use the margin correctly. You’ll hear how we oversized the fan, ran it at a lower frequency in ambient, then ramped as temperatures rose to keep kilograms per second steady. That adaptive control boosted cubic meters per second right when the layer needed support, eased plug-hole entrainment, and stabilised makeup air velocities. We walk through the thermodynamics, the electrical and pressure implications, and how these pieces form a practical control strategy for retrofits and new builds. To ground the idea, we share two paths to proof. First, CFD with user-defined control that reads gas temperature each time step and updates fan frequency with smoothed delays to prevent oscillations—capturing the real feedback loop between fire and system. Then, full-scale container burns with live control showed the same trends from 20 to over 500 degrees: falling duct pressures, lower fan power at heat, and the headroom to increase volumetric extraction without breaking limits. Thinking about it now, this idea is a part of many other concepts that I describe together. To show a way how we come from the simple framework—Smoke Control 1.0 (empirical, static), 2.0 (CFD-informed, still static), into a new smoke control 3.0 (adaptive, feedback-driven)—and explore how this thinking can reshape underground venues, car parks, tunnels, pressurisation, and natural ventilation. If you care about safer evacuation, smaller shafts, lower velocities, and systems that work with physics rather than against it, this story is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague who designs smoke control, and leave a review with your toughest question so we can tackle it next. Reading material: - Can smoke control become smart? - Transient characteristic of the flow of heat and mass in a fire as the basis for an optimised solution for smoke exhaust - Smart Smoke Control as an Efficient Solution for Smoke Ventilation in Converted Cellars of Historic Buildings ---- 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.

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 this podcast episode, we try to dig into why nightclub fires follow the same script decade after decade—what are the parts of the pattern, and what can we do through smarter design, honest modelling, and real enforcement. With guest Lazaros Filippidis from the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich, we map the chain of failure: combustible acoustic treatments under low ceilings, narrow or locked exits, stair “chimneys” that pull smoke toward escaping crowds, and furniture layouts that turn doors into traps. We talk about human behaviour. People head for the entrance they know. They hesitate when cues conflict—especially if pyrotechnics were part of the show minutes earlier. Phones come out. People respond in such a way not because people are foolish, but because recognition takes time in loud, dark, crowded spaces. The fix isn’t shaming; it’s designing for how people really act: outward‑opening doors, multiple distributed exits, better signage, immediate lights up and music down, and staff who redirect flow on instinct. For engineers, we go beyond textbook ASET vs RSET and show how coupled fire–evacuation modeling reveals the true picture as heat, irritants, and visibility degrade movement and decision‑making. We make the case for sensitivity analyses: add more patrons, block an exit, switch to ultra‑fast fire growth, drop a service trolley into a corridor, and see in what scenarios your modelling results collapse. We can find the bottlenecks, and if we do, we can fix them. With practical tools—from zone models to agent‑based simulators—you can find vulnerabilities before opening night and recommend changes that add crucial minutes or even seconds. It was a tough episode to record, especially since there is not much new we have learnt about human behaviour or fire growth in such facilities... I hope this provides some food for thought and fuels future design considerations. If you are interested in modelling done with buildingExodus, for which Lazaros is one of the developers, please go and visit the FSEG website. ---- 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.

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 examine fire engineering from the wider safety lens, exploring why culture—not just compliance—decides outcomes. We unpack a practical definition of safety as managed risk and follow the hard-earned lessons from Bradford City, King’s Cross, and Piper Alpha to today’s performance-based thinking. George explains why engineering effort should focus where complexity and uncertainty truly demand it, and why modeling without common sense leads to false confidence. We dive into real-world behavior in tunnels, the gap between ASET/RSET and what people do under stress, and how a strong safety culture aligns design, operations, and maintenance across a building’s life. The conversation tackles urgent risks that don’t fit old patterns: lithium-ion battery fires in dense urban housing, micromobility charging in corridors, and emerging wildfire exposure in regions with little prior experience. We outline what works—education that starts early and persists, firm rules with clear roles for citizens, measurable campaigns, and system-level discipline. Borrowing from occupational safety, we highlight safety cases, annual risk assessments, and psychosocial insights that improve decision-making. And we spotlight the “fire scenario” as a powerful, testable playbook for how alarms, fans, dampers, and doors should behave, creating a living matrix for commissioning and maintenance. If you care about moving beyond checklists to safety that holds up under pressure, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest safety culture challenge—we’ll feature the most compelling ideas in a future episode. Learn more about CERIDES at https://cerides.euc.ac.cy/ ---- 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.

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, experimental campaign with 20 full-scale burns, and a learning model that puts residents first. The core shift is profound—safety isn’t a box to tick; it’s a practice repeated and refined across homes, lanes, and entire neighborhoods. We dig into how Kindling translated complex fire science into choices that matter under pressure: where to place a door, how a roof fails, why flames jet from openings, and what that means for neighbors two meters away. Danielle shares how the team balances radical transparency—releasing raw data for engineers—with clear, concise guidance tailored to humanitarians and communities who need to act fast. We also unpack the governance gap: codes designed to protect everyone tend to protect only those who can comply. Performance-based approaches and policy work become lifelines when regulation fails to reach the most vulnerable. The conversation confronts emerging risks head-on. Secondhand batteries and uncertified devices flow into low-resource markets, creating hazards that standard messaging doesn’t address. Rather than preaching certification, Kindling teaches signs of battery distress, safer charging habits, and context-specific tactics that residents can own. In Cape Town—where informal settlements and service delivery are acknowledged—Kindling is piloting conflict-resolution between residents and firefighters, clarifying the fastest emergency call routes, and coordinating tactics within real infrastructure limits. If you care about fire engineering, humanitarian response, or how policy meets practice, this story offers a blueprint: open data, resident-led learning, and practical tools that scale. This is also highly relevant to all fire safety engineers - how we communicate fire science, how we reach with our message to key stakeholders, and how we consider what 'safety' really is. If you would like to hear how it started, check out episode 34: https://www.firescienceshow.com/034-fire-safety-as-a-human-right-not-a-privilege-with-danielle-antonellis/ If you want more context how it looks on the ground: https://www.firescienceshow.com/077-informal-settlements-we-need-solutions-not-gadgets-richard-walls/ Also make sure to check out Kindling website here: https://kindlingsafety.org/ ---- 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.

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 compartment fires across multiple buildings—and what that says about the limits of our current fire engineering. Keep in mind these are the opinions of myself! We start by challenging a comforting belief: that prescriptive rules and performance-based designs can handle “the big one.” They can’t if the event steps outside the envelope. You’ll hear why compartment-focused strategies struggle when geometry and wind synchronize flames, how cavity spaces in light wells amplify heat and acceleration, and why nonlinearity means a modest increase in heat release can explode into a different regime of flame spread and radiation. We break down the ingredients that turned risk into disaster: star-shaped towers with interior wells, bamboo scaffolding and netting near openings, temporary polystyrene window covers, and a dry monsoon pushing firebrands far beyond the origin. We also dig into response realities—why sprinklers and hydrants are sized for one or two compartments, not dozens at once—and the hydraulic and access limits firefighters face at height. Most importantly, we translate insights into action. Learn how to make extreme scenarios explicit with safety cases during construction, align tests with actual exposure on façades and cavities, replace flammable temporary coverings with noncombustible barriers, and plan targeted, temporary suppression where geometry concentrates risk. No single fix will prevent every tragedy, but narrowing the gap between our models and real fire behavior can save lives and homes. If this conversation helped you see fire risk differently, subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a quick review—what’s the most overlooked hazard you think we should explore next? I would like to wish you a Happy New Year 2026! Let's hope it is a year of thriving fire safety. Cover image: By am730 - YouTube: 大埔宏福苑五級火 蔓延7幢樓宇 至少13死28傷一消防殉職 – View/save archived versions on archive.org and archive.today(At 0:46 of the video), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=179003054 Wikipedia article about the Wang Fuk Court fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Fuk_Court_fire ---- 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.

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 contribute to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-open-sided-car-parks ---- 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.

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 Nick Bartlett (Atar Fire) to unpack how gas released during thermal runaway turns a container into a deflagration hazard, and what it takes to design systems that actually manage the pressure, flame, and fallout. This is a tour through real incident learnings, rigorous lab data, and the evolving standards that now shape best practice. We start with the fundamentals: from the overview given by NFPA855, why modern BESS enclosures—with higher energy density and less free volume—see faster pressure rise, how gas composition varies by cell and manufacturer, and why stratification matters when lighter hydrogen-rich mixtures sit above heavier electrolyte vapors. From there, we translate UL 9540A outputs—gas quantity, composition, flammability limits, burning velocity—into engineering decisions. NFPA 69’s prevention path typically relies on gas detection and mechanical ventilation designed to keep concentrations below 25% LFL, validated with CFD to capture obstructions, sensor placement, fan ramp, and louver timing. NFPA 68’s mitigation path kicks in if ignition happens, with certified vent panels sized to the actual reactivity and geometry, relieving pressure and directing flame away from exposures. A major takeaway: the latest NFPA 855 now often pushes for both prevention and protection. Even with active ventilation, partial-volume deflagration hazards remain, especially as cell capacities rise and gas volumes scale up. We dig into venting trade-offs—roof vs sidewall, snow and hail loading, heat flux to back-to-back units—and how targeted sidewall venting can deflect flame upward while reducing weather vulnerabilities. Perhaps most critical, we talk about late deflagrations observed hours into large-scale fire tests, when changing ventilation conditions allow pockets to ignite. Active systems aren’t built to operate throughout a long fire, so passive venting becomes essential during and after ignition. Whether you’re a fire engineer, AHJ, insurer, or developer, this conversation connects the dots between lab data, CFD, and field realities. You’ll leave with a clearer view of how to apply UL 9540A, NFPA 68, NFPA 69, and NFPA 855 in a world of stacked containers and supersized cells—plus where training can shorten your learning curve. If you are interested by the course given by colleagues in Lund in January 2026 - here it is: https://www.atarfire.com/event-details/nfpa-855-8-hour-training-lund-university ---- 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.

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 IBHS, where we dig into how wind-driven fire behave differently to small-scale and how tiny choices around a building can decide its fate. Together with my guest - dr Faraz Hedayati, we go from embers generation and fire spread studies, to urban conflagration research. We start with embers, the quiet culprits behind so many structure losses in the WUI. Embers aren’t a single threat but a spectrum of sizes, temperatures, and lifetimes that ride shifting eddies and stall in stagnation zones. We talk through what full-scale tests reveal: glowing ember lines at the base of walls, roof reattachment zones where deposits spike, and the hard truth that counting particles matters less than controlling where they land. The guidance is clear and actionable—noncombustible vertical clearance, hardened vents, defensible space within the first five feet—because under wind, any component can become the first domino. Then we tackle conflagration: how a spot fire becomes a neighborhood problem. IBHS’s shed-to-structure and fully furnished burns show exposure arriving in pulses, not a smooth curve. Collapse chokes flames and then reinvigorates them, creating multiple peaks where materials succeed or fail on a timer. We compare 30 mph to 60 mph winds and see how plumes lose buoyancy, flatten into the target, soften vinyl frames, and push glazing inward. Separation distance emerges as a decisive lever: around 10 feet, continuous flame contact dominates; at 20 feet and beyond, exposure becomes intermittent and materials can win—unless “connected fuels” like vehicles, fences, and decks bridge the gap. The takeaway isn’t a silver bullet. It’s a layered defense: control embers, clean the near-wall zone, harden openings, choose noncombustible claddings, and increase spacing where possible. Small-scale testing and modeling still matter, but wind-driven fire demands validation at full scale to catch the peaks, the collapses, and the failure modes no bench setup can mimic. If you care about wildfire resilience, urban design, or building safety, this conversation offers a rare, data-rich look at how communities ignite—and how we can change the odds. Learn more about IBHS research at https://ibhs.org/risk-research/wildfire/ Cover picture courtesy of dr Faraz Hedayati. ---- 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.

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 Buildings Through On-Site Inspections And now let's dissect this. We sit down with Björn Maiworm of the Munich Fire Department to unpack a decade of structured observations from more than 2,000 significant incidents (900 in the paper but the database already grew!) across Germany—and the results may challenge the assumptions of Fire Safety Engineers. Smoke spread shows up as way more common, despite that legislation should prevent it, and is often seen breaching beyond the apartment of origin when doors are left open, self-closers are defeated, or vertical shafts pull hot gases to the top floor. Meanwhile, true flame spread between units is relatively rare, suggesting that basic compartmentation and detailing are quiet success stories. We also talk about people. Injuries appear in roughly a third of these consequential fires and fatalities in 6 to 7 percent, with risk concentrated in prisons, elder care, and dense low-income housing. Building age isn’t the driver; height and social factors are. Where self-closing doors are mandated and maintained, smoke infiltration to stairs drops—just not as far as theory predicts, thanks to behavior and upkeep realities. That gap between paper and practice is where small, targeted fixes make the biggest difference. On emerging risks, the data draws sharp lines. Mass timber’s challenge isn’t fire resistance; it’s the speed and multi-floor spread when exposed surfaces meet window plumes. The result can outpace practical firefighting capacity. By contrast, shifting a typical household to an EV, PV, and home battery can reduce overall fire probability; the true hazards arise from poor products, DIY installs, and dense storage arrangements. The smart response is segmentation and simple physical breaks that buy time, not blanket bans or panic. We close by reframing fire safety as a complex system problem. Instead of chasing perfect proofs, we can use continuous field feedback to find the leverage points: doors that stay shut, shafts treated as priority risks, vulnerable occupancies protected with tailored measures, and dispatch data that points crews to the right entrance first. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review telling us which finding surprised you most. Your feedback helps more engineers, firefighters, and policymakers turn real-world lessons into safer buildings. ---- 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.

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 asking a sharper question: which test delivers the most decision-changing information for the least cost, time, and impact. With Dr. Andrea Franchini of Ghent University, we unpack a Bayesian framework that simulates possible outcomes before you touch a sample, updates your state of knowledge, and quantifies the utility of that update as uncertainty reduction, economic value, or environmental benefit. First, we reframe testing around information gain. Starting from a prior distribution for the parameter you care about, we model candidate experiments and compute how each would shift the posterior. The gap between prior and posterior is the signal; diminishing returns tell you when to stop. In the cone calorimeter case on PMMA ignition time, early trials yield large gains, then the curve flattens, revealing a rational stopping point and a transparent way to plan sample counts and budgets. The same structure scales from simple statistical models to high-fidelity or surrogate models when physics and geometry matter. Then we tackle a post-fire decision with real financial stakes: repair a reinforced concrete slab, or accept residual risk. We connect Eurocode-based thermal analysis to two test options—rebound hammer temperature proxies and discoloration depth—and compute their value of information. By translating updated probabilities of exceeding 600°C into expected costs of repair versus undetected failure, we show how to choose the test that pays back the most. In the studied scenario, the rebound hammer provides higher value, even after accounting for testing costs, but the framework adapts to different buildings, cost ratios, and risk appetites. Beyond pass-fail, this approach helps optimize sensor layouts, justify added instrumentation, and balance multiple objectives—uncertainty, money, and environmental impact—without slipping into guesswork. If you’re ready to move from ritual testing to evidence that changes outcomes, this conversation maps the path. Papers to read after this: Which test is the best? Choosing the fire test that maximizes the information gainQuantifying the expected utility of fire tests and experiments before execution---- 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.

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 considerations should be placed. In this episode I would like to take you inside the engineering choices that shape outcomes: ceiling height, smoke control, structural details, and how fast systems wake up when seconds matter. Instead of arguing EV versus ICE, we look at what the data shows across 148 vehicle fire tests and why there’s no single “true” car fire curve. Think of a car as a set of compartments—the cabin, engine bay, trunk, wheels, and for EVs the battery pack—each with its own vents and barriers. That lens explains the wildly different heat release profiles you see in experiments and helps you separate worst-case lab setups from realistic design scenarios. We unpack why rapid battery-led growth is so challenging for low garages, how beams can trap and extend flames under the ceiling, and how wind can either help by stripping hot gases or hurt by pushing fire across bays. From there, we focus on consequences and controls. For evacuation, the goal is to avoid early smoke cut-offs and protect crowded egress moments after events. For firefighting, the single most important factor is a clear entry path—no smoke between the crew and the fire—so water can be applied fast to stop spread, even if battery cooling remains lengthy. For structure, isolated car fires shouldn’t be catastrophic in robust frames, but long, multi-vehicle burns can threaten integrity without early control. What works? Height buys time and reduces ceiling flame attachment. Smart smoke control drains energy from the layer and lowers radiation to neighboring cars. Thoughtful layouts keep chargers away from exits and closer to exhaust paths. And suppression systems may not “kill” a battery, but they cut plume temperatures, slash spread potential, and make the entire operation safer. We also surface key gaps: natural battery-initiated growth rates, context-specific risk acceptance, and handling potential explosive gas releases with low-level detection and dilution modes. If you like to learn more, see more here: Miechówka & Węgrzyński: Systematic Literature Review on Passenger Car Fire Experiments for Car Park Safety Design Zahir & César Martín-Gómez: Evaluating Fire Severity in Electric Vehicles and Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles: A Statistical Approach to Heat Release Rates Collection of Fire Science Show episodes on cars and batteriesEpisode 6 - my early research on fast fire growtEpisode 190 - Review of research on vehicle firesPodcast episode 135 - Contemplating a car park design fire---- 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.

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 reform, where a new federal law sets a maximum individual risk for life safety, ties property protection to a clear marginal cost rule, and harmonises practice across cantons. Together, we trace how the framework defines acceptance criteria, builds a shared “model code” of probabilistic inputs, and keeps prescriptive pathways for standard projects—only now grounded in risk-optimised measures. You’ll hear how the system replaces vague equivalence with transparent math. Life safety is anchored at 5×10^-5 fatalities per user per year; if a building exceeds that threshold, measures are required until it doesn’t, regardless of cost. Beyond the threshold, optimisation is driven by the marginal cost principle and a nationally defined social willingness to pay, aligning fire with flood, transport, and earthquake risk policy. For property, the rule is simple and strict: do not spend more than the expected damage you remove. While the code was being developed, Sofia put the method to the test in a retail centre case study using Bayesian networks and ASET/RSET. The model compared detection, sprinklers, and smoke exhaust while capturing occupancy, fuel loads, growth rates, system reliability, and fire service response. The surprising result: in a seven-meter hall, detection met the life-safety target on its own, and the most cost-effective optimisation paired detection with sprinklers, while smoke exhaust added little benefit in that geometry. The lesson isn’t that one system always wins; it’s that context and data should decide, not habit. Switzerland didn’t stop at policy. A peer-review approval process, ETH’s advanced training in probability and risk, and a national model code make the approach usable and reviewable. The reform is in technical review ahead of political approval, with mechanisms for minor updates as evidence grows. Direct links to the document: - German Version: https://mitwirkung-vkf.ch/de/ - French Version: https://mitwirkung-vkf.ch/fr/ Also, there are 4 short videos in German, French and Italian that describes the new framework of the new codes: https://www.bsvonline.ch/de/brandschutzvorschriften/projekt-bsv-2026/videos A part of this shift in culture is also the new MAS in fire at the ETH, which you can learn more about in here: https://mas-brandschutz.ethz.ch/ ---- 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.

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 safety, from enclosure design to emergency response. We sat down with Noah Ryder from the Fire and Risk Alliance to unpack how BESS has evolved from walk-in containers to dense, modular “refrigerator” units—and how the move to liquid cooling, tighter layouts, and higher amp-hour cells impacts both opportunity and risk. We explore the real jobs batteries do for the grid: shifting solar and wind, replacing peaker plants, stabilizing frequency, and powering microgrids. Then we zoom into the fast-growing edge case: AI-hungry data centers integrating batteries at the rack level for modularity and speed. That flexibility has a cost. Less free airspace and larger cells mean faster gas accumulation, higher heat flux into insulated enclosures, and a credible explosion hazard from a single failure. We walk through the failure timeline—monitoring anomalies, venting, immediate versus delayed ignition, sustained fire, and potential propagation—and identify practical interventions at each step. Noah lays out the tradeoffs many teams avoid: accept that a damaged unit is a write-off, or try to save modules at all costs? Should we prefer a known flame over an uncertain blast by using intentional spark ignition? How should NFPA 855’s push toward gas-triggered mechanical ventilation and deflagration venting influence spacing, panel placement, and vent direction? We also dig into enclosure construction—non-combustible insulation, steel skins, coolant flammability—and how better insulation can safely cut spacing by slowing heat penetration and reducing internal temperature rise. Looking forward, stacking feels inevitable. The smarter approach is to treat batteries not just as a cause but as a fuel, borrowing tested methods from high-rack storage: quantify heat release and radiant exposure, model gas evolution and overpressure, orient vents to manage flame jets, and define acceptable loss before design begins. If you care about real-world energy storage—utility sites, microgrids, or data centers—you’ll leave with a clearer framework to make informed, defensible choices. If you would like to learn more about Noah and the Fire and Risk Alliance, you can find them online here: https://fireriskalliance.com/ Enjoy the conversation, then subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review to help more engineers find the show. ---- 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.

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 go up, we open up a debate on how to cope with that so that the entire field goes in the right direction. For this podcast roundtable debate, I've invited Steve McGuirk, who represents Fire Sector Confederation, and Professor Brian Meacham from Crux, a lifelong contributor to understanding systems in fire safety. The conversation starts with Grenfell as a case study in systemic breakdown, then stretches into the “fire chain” of policy, design, construction, occupation, incidents, investigation, and remediation. Along the way, we confront the half-life of crises, the overload of regulations, and the real-world trade-offs that shape housing, affordability, and risk. We push beyond “add another rule” and ask better questions: How do incentives drive design decisions? Where does culture—of fire services, engineers, and politics—help or hinder outcomes? What would it take for standards bodies, professional institutions, and regulators to speak with a more unified voice? We explore convergence research as a practical method to break silos, inviting small, diverse teams to co-create solutions instead of defending old paradigms. From single-stair mid-rise housing to lithium-ion hazards, we dig into how to balance life safety, property protection, and community needs without freezing progress. Technology shows up as both a tool and a trap. AI and modelling can map complexity and test scenarios, but they cannot replace critical thinking or ethics. We share grounded advice for practitioners: define the problem before you simulate, involve the right stakeholders early, make risk choices explicit, and design for how people actually behave. Competence, mentoring, and integrity are not nice-to-haves; they’re the core of public safety. ---- 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.

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 CLT in fire, what differences between the glues are observable at the microscale and how they show up in real structure fires. We compare common polyurethane adhesives: one that softens near 200–220 C and one that resists softening, crosslinks, and ultimately chars. Through thermogravimetric and calorimetric testing, we map pivotal transitions like glass transition and softening. Then we scale up. With small shear-lap coupons and meter-long cantilevers under controlled heat flux, we see how mechanical load amplifies normal strains at the bond line—especially in cross-laminated elements where grain orientation concentrates stress. The result is a clear picture of when heat-induced delamination begins, how it differs from char fall-off, and why heat flux often dominates the story. Moisture emerges as a powerful, often overlooked driver. Using neutron imaging, we visualize vapor moving toward and across the bond line, slowing as it crosses the interface. That temporary moisture retention can make an adhesive appear to “fail at a lower temperature,” not from chemistry alone but from local pore pressure and hydration dynamics. We translate these findings into actionable guidance: specify adhesives that char rather than soften, control lamella thickness, consider parallel lamellas to preserve capacity after a ply loss, and model realistic heat flux and shear demands instead of relying on a single critical temperature. If you design or review mass timber, this conversation gives you the tools to ask better questions: Which adhesive? What heat flux history? How much shear at the bond line? And how will moisture in use and during fire shift the thresholds you’re counting on? Interested in further reading? Got your back. Paper on microscale experiments on adhesivesBook Chapter on Compartment Fire Dynamics with TimberFull scale experiments on CLT with different adhesives ---- 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.

In this episode we try to demonstrate another step in integrating fire engineering into WUI risk management, and vice versa. These two areas together form some sort of fire engineering method, which I strongly believe will be an important part of our profession in the future. Today I got to sit down with Dr. Pascale Vacca from UPC to unpack a practical, end-to-end framework for wildland–urban interface risk that engineers can use today, which she has shared in her keynote at the ESFSS Conference in Ljubljana earlier this year. From mapping hazard, exposure, and vulnerability across scales to chaining wildfire spread outputs into building-focused simulations, we show how careful modeling turns uncertainty into a plan communities can fund and maintain. We begin with risk assessment that respects terrain, fuels, and construction typologies, then translate FARSITE’s rate of spread and fireline intensity into FDS boundary conditions to test real weaknesses—like heat flux and breakage in large glazed facades. The case study in Barcelona grounds it all: what happens when wind pushes a fast front toward a community center, and which retrofits move the needle? Noncombustible shutters, smarter venting, and defensible spacing emerge as high-ROI fixes, while fuel breaks and fuel treatments reduce intensity so crews can act. Along the way, we tackle data resolution, moisture, and weather selection—how to choose between worst case and representative scenarios and why that choice matters for policy and budgets. Preparedness and recovery complete the cycle. Annual maintenance keeps gains from eroding as vegetation regrows; community preparedness days build habits and trust; and a homeowner app scores parcel risk to make decisions concrete. On the response side, precomputed scenarios and quick wildfire modeling inform shelter-in-place versus evacuation, aligning engineering insight with operational realities. We also confront limits: validation gaps, ember exposure, and the fact that risk is never zero. But the path forward is clear—interdisciplinary planning, better data sharing after fires, and education to bring more engineers into WUI work. ---- 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.

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 experiments at the ISS called SoFIE-MIST taught us about solid fuel flammability in microgravity—how tiny ventilation, oxygen levels, and pressure shifts determine whether a flame spreads, stalls, or vanishes. The details are surprising: blue “bubble” flames, two distinct extinction points, and sustained burning at oxygen levels that would fail to ignite on Earth. We walk through the entire setup: PMMA rods chosen for clean, uniform burning; a compact wind tunnel inside the ISS hardware; ceramic heaters delivering 1–3 kW/m² to probe incipient behavior; and a control strategy that often lets the flame’s own oxygen consumption carry the chamber gently to extinction. Along the way, you’ll hear how constraints drive design—why rods beat flats, why halogen lamps didn’t fly, how crew time is minimized with robotic runs—and how data is captured without weighing anything. Opposed-flow flame spread becomes a window into fundamentals: radiative preheating, thermal thickness, and the delicate balance between convective loss and feedback when buoyancy is gone. The implications stretch to future habitats and vehicles. As spaceflight moves toward longer missions and more commercial operators, safety will hinge on accurate flammability limits under low ventilation and non-Earth atmospheres. We connect the dots to normoxic choices, partial‑g research on the Moon and Mars, and the growing need for space fire engineering that’s grounded in real data. If you care about spacecraft safety, materials selection, and the science behind early fire detection, this conversation is right for you. If you want to learn more, do it here: a brilliant article at the Berkeley websiteNASA Glenn website about the SoFIE programmeEpisode 75 with David Urban on spacecraft fire safetyQA session 5 - brainstorming martian habitat fire safetyCover image credit: NASA, Igniting a 12.7 mm sample at 21% oxygen under 100 kPa ambient pressure in microgravity. From article https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2024/12/nasa-funded-project-offers-new-insights-into-fire-behavior-in-space/ ---- 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.