CROSS UK is Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures in UK. CROSS is a confidential reporting system which allows professionals working in the built environment to report on fire and structural safety issues. These are then published anonymously to share lessons learned, create positive change, and improve safety. Find out more about the safety information we provide below.

This initiative in the space of fire safety is lead by Neil Gibbins and Peter Wilkinson, who are my guests today. We go through the ideas behind the institution and the reasons why we need it. We discuss the confidentiality and all the layers of protection of the reports, and the bias of the issues brought up. This includes the strict “no blame policy”. We also go in deep into some more interesting, representative reports published by cross (out of 99 published on fire so far!).

Please join CROSS UK newsletter and check their repository here: https://www.cross-safety.org/uk

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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.

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we go in depth on the Building Integrated Photo-Voltaic systems (BIPV). It is a topic relevant to many fire engineers, and one on which it is very difficult to find a lot of information about. For this purpose I’ve invited Reidar Stølen from RISE and a PhD candidate at Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU.

Reidar has hands-on experience with fire testing BIPV façade, as he has performed such experiments with the Swedish test method for a commercial project. The results of the first experiments can be found in this research paper: Large- and small-scale fire test of a building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) façade system. We go in depth into description of the test sample, the rig and the outcomes of the experiment. Make sure to check the paper for the before and after pictures of the façade!

Another paper worth highlighting is the investigation into the Factors Affecting the Fire Safety Design of Photovoltaic Installations Under Performance-Based Regulations in Norway. Related to this we have an in depth discussion on the factors that play role in PV fires, especially connectors as one of the main sources of the fire.

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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.

In this episode, we explore wildfire's impact on industrial fire safety with Professor Eulàlia Planas from Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. Eulalia defines the term Wildland Industrial Interface (WII), a realm where the forces of nature clash with safety and process engineering.

In the episode, we highlight that it is not just the exposure to the fire itself but also to the secondary effects - ember storms, firebrand accumulation, strong winds or power shutdowns that may cause significant damage. Also, even if the wildfires do not cause fires directly, they may damage auxiliary systems, creating unacceptable vulnerabilities in the plant. Finally, we discuss what is the challenge of shutting the plant down and evacuating it.

In the episode, we will present the differences to traditional risk assessments when confronted with wildfire behaviour and investigate scenarios in which even the most robust chemical plants can succumb to the fire.

Further reading includes:
- Fires at the wildland-industrial interface. Is there an emerging problem?
- Asset Integrity in the Case of Wildfires at Wildland-Industrial Interfaces
- Vulnerability of industrial storage tanks to wildfire: A case study
- Analysis of the impact of wildla

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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.