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. Our decisions shape the building environment, which acts as a battleground for them, affects their actions and options. And we can design buildings better!

My today's guest, dr Ali Ashrafi of Thornton Tomasetti is passionate about building safer buildings. Ali highlights the key elements of making the building safer for firefighters, with a great focus on the structural resilience of the buildings. Highlighting the performance-based design approach he claims that we can build not only better but also cheaper at the same time. Well, that's kind of a win-win situation... If you want to learn more, this episode is for you.

Learn more about Ali at:
https://www.thorntontomasetti.com/person/ali-ashrafi

And connect with him through LinkedIn

Followup material:

• A presentation about Performance-Based Design of Buildings in Fire: Implications for Firefighting
• Performance-based structural fire design: Exemplar Design guide developed by ASCE and Charles Pankow Foundation
• Dan Madrzykowski Using Fire Dynamics Research to Save Firefighters
• Stephen Kerber, Dan Madrzykowski Fire Behavior and Tactical Considerations
• NIST & UL Research on Fire Behavior & Fireground Tactics

Thank you to the SFPE for recognizing me with the 2025 SFPE Fire Safety Engineering Award! Huge thanks to YOU for being a part of this, and big thanks to the OFR for supporting me over the years.

----
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.