Fire Science Show

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 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/ [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.

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, 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/ [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/ [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/ [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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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 [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.