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 engineering takes on an entirely different dimension when applied to massive infrastructure projects where conventional building codes provide minimal guidance and engineers must forge their own path.

Dr. Mukesh Tomar from Jacobs takes us deep into the world of "non-real estate fire engineering" – the complex realm of cable tunnels stretching dozens of kilometres, nuclear facilities requiring marathon-like design processes, and mega-airports that function as entire cities. These projects demand fundamentally different approaches from traditional buildings, with engineers often working without clear objectives while balancing multiple stakeholders' requirements.

The challenges are as fascinating as they are daunting. How do you establish evacuation strategies for maintenance workers in remote utility tunnels? What happens when nuclear safety requirements from different global standards conflict with each other? And how do you integrate new fire safety systems with decades-old infrastructure during airport expansions? We explore these questions while uncovering the frustrations and rewards of engineering at this scale.

Perhaps most thought-provoking is how these specialised challenges are increasingly relevant to everyday buildings. As electric vehicle charging brings industrial-scale electrical systems into residential buildings, the line between conventional and infrastructure fire safety grows increasingly blurred. Without clear objectives and specialised expertise, are we adequately addressing these emerging risks?

Whether you're a seasoned infrastructure engineer or working primarily in traditional buildings, this episode offers valuable insights into the outer boundaries of fire safety engineering and the critical importance of establishing clear objectives before attempting solutions. Follow the Fire Science Show for more deep dives into the fascinating world where fire science meets real-world engineering challenges.

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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.

Dr Randy McDermott takes us behind the scenes of fire science's most critical software tool in this conversation about the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) developed at NIST. As one of the developers, Randy offers valuable insights into how this essential modelling tool is maintained, improved, and adapted to meet the evolving challenges of the fire safety community.

The conversation begins with a look at the development process itself, based on a greater picture roadmap and also addressing practical issues reported by users. This balance between vision and responsiveness has helped FDS maintain its position as the gold standard in fire modelling. Randy unpacks the massive validation guide (over 1,200 pages) and explains how users should approach it to understand model capabilities and uncertainties.

The guide, along with all the validation cases, is available at Github repository here: https://github.com/firemodels/fds

Rather than blindly applying FDS to any problem, he emphasises the importance of identifying similar validated cases and understanding the limitations of the software for specific applications. The discussion tackles emerging challenges like battery fires and mass timber construction – areas where traditional fire modelling approaches face significant hurdles. Randy addresses the limitations of current models while outlining pathways for future development, including potential integration with external specialised models and improvements in chemistry modelling.

Finally, we also get to talk about computational costs and efficiency. As Randy explains the implementation of GPU acceleration and the challenges of incorporating detailed chemistry, listeners gain a deeper appreciation of the tradeoffs involved in advanced fire modelling.

Whether you're an FDS user, fire safety engineer, or simply curious about computational modelling, this episode offers valuable perspectives on the past, present and future of the tool that underpins modern fire safety science.

Oh, and Randy is not just an FDS developer - he is also a prolific researcher. You can find more about his scientific works here: https://www.nist.gov/people/randall-j-mcdermott

As always, MASSIVE THANKS TO THE NIST GROUP AND THEIR COLLABORATORS FOR BUILDING AND MAINTAINING THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF SOFTWARE WE HAVE!!! You guys are not thanked enough!

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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.

Four years ago, what began as a mission to preserve valuable fire safety engineering conversations has grown into a fairly large platform connecting professionals across 170+ countries. The journey to 200 episodes and nearly 200,000 downloads has been both challenging and deeply rewarding – in this episode, I share a bit about my journey, the state of things and the near future of the podcast.

*** Important notice: at the end of the show notes is a survey, and I would be thrilled if you participated in it. Back to the news post ***

Behind every weekly episode lies 10-12 hours of preparation, recording, and editing. From coordinating with international guests across time zones to balancing out the technical depth and accessibility, producing the Fire Science Show has become a finely-tuned process. Some recordings happen at 5 AM, some late at night, all to bring the most valuable fire science conversations to your ears.

This special anniversary episode pulls back the curtain on what makes the podcast work. You'll discover how episodes are created from concept to publication, learn about memorable moments (like the great LEGO collapse catastrophe during an interview with my podcasting idol Pat Flynn), and hear about challenges faced along the way. The most popular episodes – including fundamentals with Rory (2,500 listens) and timber fire safety with Danny Hopkin (1,800 listens) reveal what resonates most with our community of listeners. But all episodes are important, as they together create a space where complex fire science becomes accessible and engaging for professionals worldwide.

As we look toward the future, your input is essential. What topics should we cover? What format works best for you? The listener survey linked in our show notes is your chance to help shape the Fire Science Show's next chapter. Join us as we continue bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and practical application in fire safety engineering.

>>>> LINK TO THE SURVEY <<<<

Lastly, but also very important. Massive shout out to the OFR for making this journey possible. If not you, we would not be celebrating this anniversary. Thank you so much for your support to the concept of freely accessible high-quality CPD delivered to any part of the world, any time someone feels like it!

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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.