Fire Science Show

What is the single most measured thing in fire science? The answer is easy - temperature. We use it everywhere - from learning material properties in TGA's to expressing conditions in compartment fires. We use it at the same time to define exposure conditions for our structures and the acceptance criteria within them. We even use it in evacuation studies to define the tenability criteria for occupants... We measure temperature. Everywhere and all the time...

In this episode, I had the pleasure and privilege to host dr Kees Both, the Technical Manager of Standards & Regulations in Etexgroup. Kees wanted to become a suspension bridge engineer, but his route went through a fire lab, and as he said - once you go into a fire lab, there is no way out. From a scientist, he has "evolved" into a research manager, project manager and someone, who has a significant impact on the shape of the standards and legislation in Europe...

We are living in a kind of weird time, where the most complex tool we have is at the same time the most commonly used (and abused one). The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling has brought us amazing capabilities in solving the flows within fires. But this power comes at a price - knowledge, resources, time... Sometimes we lack some of these (or all) and we turn the power tool into a generator of beautiful images that are hardly any representation of the physics of the fire.....

Have you ever wondered how is a fire of a match or candle different from a wildfire? Or maybe rather, why is it different? What is it, that makes the fires at different scales behave in such a different manner? What are the phenomena that drive these fires, and are these the same phenomena across the scales? These are the questions I had in mind when starting the interview with a rising star of Wildfire Science – Dr Sara McAllister of the USDA Forest Service...

Have you ever wondered who truly has the most power over the fire safety of a building? In my opinion, the answer is very simple - the Architect. This is due to two reasons. First is that the architect can affect the building shape, size, compartmentation, location of the openings in the building - things that are fundamental to the compartment fire dynamics. The second reason is that they make the decisions at the most infant stage of the building construction...

Evacuation modelling is paramount in accounting for the human aspect in our fire modelling. But how is it developing? Where are we with our tools, and where are we heading with them? What are the most profound challenges related to the evacuation modelling?

To answer these questions I have invited two renowned experts on evacuation modelling...

When you think about battling wildfires, what is the image you see in front of your eyes? Probably an air tanker (at least that was what I saw...). After this interview, your optics will change about 180 degrees. Dr Cathelijne Stoof explained to me why strategies focused ultimately on fire resistance and suppression are deemed to fail, and why we need to learn to manage the risks in our forests...

It is hard for us, fire safety engineers, to talk to firefighters on how to do their job... Probably we even shouldn't, as we have no idea how it is to truly go there into the heat and battle fire to save lives. But it does not mean we should not care. Firefighters are important actors in the fire safe world, and we cannot design buildings as if they were not. In the end, the probability of you being in a fire is fairly low, while for a firefighter this P = 1...

https://firelab.berkeley.edu/ this is the place you need to go!

Ignition at different slope angles. Firebrand spotting. Fire whirls. What does connect these various fire phenomena? They are all driven by fluid dynamics and can happen only in very particular flow conditions. To define and understand these conditions... well that is a bit longer story that I will unravel with Prof. Michael J. Gollner of the University of California, Berkeley...

In Episode 18  we have touched on the important topic of fire performance of engineered wood and its wide use in the modern built environment. Today,  we follow up on this subject with Dr Felix Wiesner from the University of Queensland. We leave the (important) topic of compartment fire dynamics and focus on what happens inside the wood in the fire. And there is much more going on than I have initially thought.....