¶ Advancing Fire Safety Through Wildfire Modeling
Hello everybody , welcome to the Fire Science Show . Its celebration time . Fire Science got another ERC grant that is relevant to fire safety engineering . For me as a scientist it's really a thing to cherish , because ERC , the European Research Council grants , are the Formula One of science .
It's the dream and as you can imagine , those grants being the holy grail for literally every single researcher out there . They are so competitive and so difficult to obtain almost impossible . And yet we had ERC grant .
But Professor Ruben van C two years ago awarded ERC starting grant and Ruben is well into his research that we've talked about in the podcast two years ago . And today I have a possibility to choose another ERC laureate . That is Dr Francesco Restuccia from King's College London , my very good friend , and I am so happy for Francesco .
So , francesco , you know him from the podcast . He was talking here about batteries and a lot of his recent research is about fire safety of batteries and he indeed does some amazing work in that space . But the grant is completely different .
The grant is all about modeling wildfires and his approach to modeling to merge tons of other models that already exist , to find scales at which the transition happens , the regimes change , and create new , better models that would have higher technical complexity or better accuracy than the current ones and yet be applicable and usable , which will definitely create space
for new frontiers of fire safety engineering real-time modeling of wildfire , progress , sensitivity studies for fuel management , perhaps assistance for management of WE communities A lot of possibilities that may open after this grant is completed and after Francesco integrates the knowledge that's around and adds his own research on top of that .
Anyway , this episode has kind of two parts . So two-thirds of the episode we discuss about the ERC grant itself . So we discuss the models and everything that Francesco wants to do in his grant , and the last one-third of the episode is more towards young researchers who also share the dream of getting an ERC grant on their own .
So the last part we've spent just talking about the process of obtaining such a massive grant and some , let's say , coaching recommendations for people on what does it mean to write an ESC grant ? What are you looking for ? What should you focus on ? Perhaps , that said , some good mentoring .
Francesco is one of the best mentors I know in the space of fire science , so I'm sure these are some useful advice to young scholars . Anyway , let's stop talking and give the microphone to the man . So let's spin the intro and jump into the episode . Welcome to the Fire science Show . My name is Wojciech Wegrzyński and I will be your host .
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Get in touch at oafrconsultantscom . Hello everybody , welcome to the Fire Science Show . I am joined today again by Dr Francesco Restuccia . Hey , francesco , good to have you back in the show .
Thank you again for the invitation . Ojec Nice to see you .
And look , mate , a man who lists two Fire Science Show episodes at the top of his CV got the ERC . I'm kind of not surprised . Joe Rogan can make you a US president , so I guess this podcast helps you in the career a little bit .
No , yeah , I always enjoy coming to the Five Science Show , also because you make me think about the problems I work on and having to explain them , and so , yeah , it's always really , really interesting , and I listen to all of your episodes . I still don't know how you managed to make so many episodes and where you find the time , but they're fantastic .
You're in the middle of making one . So let's say you have insight to the backend and , anyway , fantastic job on the batteries and everything you've been doing . But the ERC you've submitted is so far away from the world of battery that I'm used to interview you in . So let me do it properly .
Let me read out the starting grant name that you've just got Wildfires and Climate Change , physics-based Modeling of Fire Spread in a Changing World Acronym Fire Mod . So this is what you just got funded in the ERC scheme . For those who don't know , who are listening , this is like this , is it ? That's the top .
You cannot go any further , at least in the European Union and the islands around it . So , francesco , tell me the genesis of that , like what made you write a wildfire and climate proposal and how long that has been in your head .
So my research group so I run the research group Heat and Fire Lab , and my group , as you say , predominantly focuses on batteries has kind of three strands . So I have the heat side , where I do thermal management . I look at biomass , I look a little bit on hydrogen and then I have the fire dynamics part , and the fire dynamics is sort of split into two .
One is the fire dynamics of batteries . I look at fire spread , I look at ignition , I look at suppression . Myself and my team and I had currently one , two PhD students who have been working on wildfire , but again it's an area that's smaller in my group .
I was interested in wildfire for a long time because from a fire dynamics perspective it's one of the most complex phenomena to study at a lab scale and a large scale because there are many , many differences and so there are a lot of similarities and in fact I used a lot of what I learned in my past work .
Both in the ignition work that I did during my PhD with Guillermo Reina at Imperial , in my battery work , especially the fire spread in batteries . I saw some similarities and some differences and what really interested me on wildfires for a long , long time has been the fact that they can do so much damage when they're uncontrolled . I come from Italy .
We have wildfires all the time . I come from southern Italy , but if you look at Greece , you look at Spain , you look at Portugal , there are a lot of very large scale wildfires and we've been doing a lot of work operationally across the world to try and understand them .
But there is still a lot to be done , and so I started really looking at this maybe five years ago . I started thinking about this and then it took a few years to develop sort of an idea of what I thought I could contribute , and so a lot of my current past work before the CRC has really been on the sensitivity .
So PhD student Imogen Richards in my group has really focused on the sensitivity of physical parameters for wildfires , and so I was really interested in understanding how different variables affect the output . Right , all of our models are models .
When we do modeling , they have an input , they have an output , they have multiple inputs usually , and often we look at multiple outputs , and what really interested me for the last couple of years was okay , how does my input change my output ? So I often think of data as if my data is garbage going in .
The data I'm getting out is definitely going to be garbage . And so if I'm doing a model and I have an experimental data point , my experimental data point will have some error . And how will that error , how will that change affect my output ?
Now , in the real world , in wildfires , it's not an error , it's the variability of a fuel , variability of nature , right ? So you can have an area which has a certain moisture content on a certain day , in a certain wind , in a certain slope , and then another day , a week later , completely different boundary conditions .
And so I really wanted to look at and I looked at the past models , because there's been many models on ignition , on spread , and I want to really look at the fundamentals to understand how we can scale these fire models .
I had some episodes on wildfires , a lot of them on wildfires in the fire science shows , as you know , and models do kind of exist , like we have this Rothamilz model which lasts for I don't know how many decades already , but it's been the basis of the 1970s .
Exactly , it's 50 years almost .
Happy 50th birthday . Anyway , we have those tools to allow us to model or predict to some extent the wildfires . Everyone is familiar with the maps of fire hazard . Right , we have the tools that assist firefighters on the scene with this likely spread of fires . So is there really such a gap ?
If you could extract one thing that's lacking from the current models , that justifies doing this massive research project Absolutely .
Yeah , so it's a sort of two problem , right ? When you do a model , you have , let's say , y-axis and x-axis . If we look at an axis , y-axis physical fidelity , x-axis applicability , right . So the further right bottom you are , the most applicable it is , but maybe it has less physics .
So a Rotterdam model , so any pure empirical wildfire model that maybe has a few physical input parameters but is very empirical or operational models like a Rotterdam model really sit on lower physical fidelity but applicability to many , many scenarios .
I'll stop you for a second , because I realize the audience may not be that familiar with Rotterdam model . It's not something most fire engineers would use . So Rotterdam model is basically one equation and you put up things like slope moisture . Is there wind in it as well ?
Yes , there's wind , so you look at wind . So effectively
¶ Fire Modeling for Predictive Risk Analysis
. Rotterdam model takes a flame and it has a contact with the fuel . That flame has some radiation , some convection and then some solid mass transport . No , no , no , you're over . So variables you put in are effectively size , temperature , moisture . So you have a few physical variables you put in and then you get out a rate of spread Exactly .
So super simple , like one equation . You put up the variables , you get the rate of spread . Then that's the most applicable because it takes you a second to solve . But it lacks the physical depth of everything and the other end of scale .
The other end of scale is so , exactly , if you go to the very high physical fidelity so , for example , physics-based direct numerical simulation of wildfires then you are very , very detailed so you can focus on which aspects . So let's say , you really want to get detailed kinetics , you really want to understand how that fuel degradation happens .
You can get a very , very good understanding , but it's very limited in application because you can't extract those results for many other results and so it's very , very high physical fidelity but very low applicability to diverse scenarios . Let's say , so those are the two extremes . You have stuff in the middle , right . That's called reduced order models .
And so in the middle between fully empirical and fully physics-based , you have reduced order models . Those are either semi-empirical models or there's lots of AI and data-trained models . Those are somewhere in the middle , right ? So you have some physics and some operational aspects , some empirical aspects , and every model has advantages and disadvantages .
The best you know . If you really want to understand how a fuel will degrade and the kinetics of a fuel for a very , very specific scenario , then you do lots of detailed kinetics , right . If you don't really care about that , then you say well , I have so many heterogeneous fuels .
I just want to understand roughly the rate of spread in this with these physical conditions . Then you have the fully empirical model .
But to understand the changing fire regimes and understand the different theories , because , again , when I look at the physics-based fully physics-based I give you the example of kinetics , but I could also say I can take a full physics-based one for atmospheric models , right ?
So I say , well , I want to understand the very large , large scale spread of these clouds of megafires that maybe are spreading very , very largely . Then I would use a very detailed atmospheric model to understand that sort of propagation .
Or let's say I wanted to understand the transition between smoldering and flaming fires , which are really different scales , right , so some are centimeters per hour , the other ones are meters or kilometers per hour , depending how fast it's going , and so then you would need a model that's very good for that flaming or smoldering regime .
Or let's say you wanted to understand the risk okay , this is less for wildfires but in general for fire modeling the risk of deflagration , right , then you focus on very specific type of models where pressure becomes very important , and so it really depends on which physical variable and to establish fire spread transport thresholds for diverse environments .
So let's say you're looking at centimeters versus kilometers . We use different models for physics-based , and that's actually the problem that I encounter when I use a lot of models . Every model is useful for some scenario , right Okay ?
so you would use FDS for , let's say , compartment scale fire . But FDS is tricky when you want to do urban configuration and it's tricky if you want to investigate a matchstick , for example , because the scale is too small .
So you have models for different scale and in your applicability versus technical complexity thing I would assume that some sort of crown achievement would be technically advanced model which would be as applicable as Rotterman model , exactly .
I think that's the future . Yeah , so when I say what is my ideal model , it would be a physics-based model that has the same applicability range as a raw thermal model . Right , because then you can get very detailed physics included and incorporated into something that's very diversely applicable .
But in here applicability could be also understood as user-friendliness or the difficulty in use of the model . So Rotterdam model is extremely easy to use because you basically can make a spreadsheet and you just put in your slope , your moisture , your wind and you get the outcome .
Or you have already made packages that can import a topographical map of your terrain and just release the fire and it already knows the wind , already knows the snow . It's so easy to apply . Yet the extreme complex models you've mentioned DNS modeling of the fuel package Jesus Christ that's .
I got chills when you told me that because I know how much work would be setting up that model . So is there any shortcut that we could apply those complex models in a simple way , like perhaps automate them to some way ? Is there any shortcut that we could apply those complex models in a simple way , like perhaps automate them to some way ?
So yes , if we can find the thresholds for applicability , which is actually so if you look at the summary page of my grant , I had to write for the EU like a half a pager of you know why is this important as a project .
And I think if we can find the scales where changing fire regimes actually change , right , so if we can look at temporal and spatial scales to understand those changing regimes , fires are driven by different heat . The dominant heat transfer mechanism changes as the fire changes , right , so you could have convection driven , radiation driven .
So if we can find those changing fire regimes , when we include vegetation dynamics which is really the tricky part when we look at this from wildfires , then we can start scaling up maybe those fine mesh models that you were talking about , where we have all the complexity to larger grid sizes and not lose accuracy . And then sort of the third aspect .
So that's all heat and modeling-based , but the third aspect which is fundamental from fire is also understanding the effects of the different fire spread regimes , right . So if I have a regime that's a fast fire I really enjoyed last two weeks ago .
It was a paper in Nature and it was the science and it was the cover and it was fast fires right , and I said , oh fast , what do they mean by fast ? Then they meant fast spreading .
But when we can look at those let's say , fast or slow fires and we can integrate the different behaviors of both in our model , then we can make a very predictive tool right .
Because if we have a predictive tool that can also be used operationally I think that's sort of the long-term vision of where I think we eventually need a FHIR model to be Then you can say , okay , those FHIR risk maps that you mentioned , actually we can do something a lot more accurate for this specific scenario .
So let's say , we have a risk of FHIR here , we plug it into a quick model , hopefully , and that quick model will tell us , yes , no , and this spread or this spread right . That's sort of the long-term goal , I think , where fire modeling can go , because , as you said , there's lots of fire spread models and they're very useful in different scenarios .
I've been calling smoldering fires the slow fires since always and I'm very happy that science has taken the fire science nomenclature for fires and now applies them on the covers . That's good on the covers . That's good , do you think ?
Because in your paper I find a lot of like really interesting things , and then you could expect that from ESC grants up to like using satellite readings , remote sensing and everything .
So immediately in my head I see this applicability of a model where you basically are in a part of a terrain and you know the topography from the GIS maps , you know the current weather from the satellites , you know where the fire is from your remote sensing units , and then everything happens on the back end and just provides you with an accurate , quick , robust
prediction . Is this this high end of applicability that you're ?
talking about Exactly that . So if I was to summarize that in a sentence right , you want a holistic , real-time risk prediction and fuel management tool that's based on identifiable fuel and landscape , right ? Because if you know the landscape , as you said , and you know the fuel , then you can either have the risk prediction or the fuel management prediction .
If we want to manage that fuel instead all in one tool , yeah , that's , I think , the goal , that's , I think , where we want to be with a fire model , let's say , in 10 years' time . And what's stopping us from having it right now ? Identifying the driving , heat transfer and chemical thresholds for the varying scales .
So , when we look at satellites right , so you mentioned Rotterdam in the 1970s . Then we had a lot of satellites used for wildfire protection since 2005 . So it's been 20 years . But there's a size limit , right .
There's a grid and a satellite image will have a certain scale , and then there's even the larger ones , the atmospheric ones , for very , very large scale . But identifying the thresholds for the varying scales is what's missing at the moment , so Finiacal .
If you remember , there was a paper in the Presidio of the National Academy of Sciences about 10 years ago where they really looked at that convection-driven fire spread . So that's identifying a threshold , right , that's identifying the heat transfer mechanism for that specific type .
If we had that for more types and not just convection , and not just one type of fuel , that's kind of what's missing at the moment , in my opinion . Guillermo wrote an accolade to nature about that work Fantastic work , fantastic experimental and theoretical work in my opinion . Yeah , it was a great paper .
And those gaps , so you must have proposed a way forward to solve it . If you got this five-year funding , yeah , what are the next steps for you and your group ? How do you think we can move towards incorporating all of those models and identifying those scale challenges ?
So obviously , yeah , we can't work on everything right . So I've given you lots and lots of problems and lots and lots of variables that can be studied , but obviously we can't focus on all of them . And so , as you can read on my fact sheet for the grant , if you have a look , I sort of focus on three different methods in parallel .
And so , again , I'm interested in the prediction and understanding of the occurrence of uncontrolled fires and I'm interested in a physical , fundamental physical model . So again , there's lots of different types of models . I really am interested in advancing the physical model of fire spread process for different conditions and different fuel types and so sort of .
I look at three methods in parallel . That's what my group would like to look at in this project . The first one is studying fires across temporal and spatial scales , right To understand those , changing fire regimes and bringing in vegetation dynamics .
The second one is understanding fire on multiple scales and that will help us scale up from those , you know , small scale fine mesh models to large grid sizes .
And then the last one is to integrate that effect of you call them slow and fast fire , so integrating the effect of smoldering , combustion into the modeling of fire spread , just something that is not done often , and that's sort of the methodology and tools . And again , the wider context .
If I look back , you know lots of people already work on wildfires , and you know this already . But the larger aspect is really the human side as well . You know we have over a billion people a year impacted by wildfire smoke .
If I look at European Union alone you know I'm again from Italy we have over 4 billion euros of wildfire cost a year right Worldwide . We emit from wildfires over 2000 megatons of CO2 a year , and so it's a larger scale problem . It's not just the engineering and the fire science one that we're interested in , it's also the health aspects and so on .
Again , I focus on the engineering because that's my expertise , but the wildfire problem is much larger than just this one .
I also like that you've included the climate aspect in your proposal and in the B1 that you've sent me . You've shown the Arctic region and different types of of wildfire , wildlife or vegetation interactions that can be happening there , and also smoldering , like transition from climbing to smoldering , smoldering to flaming . Can you comment on that ?
Why you've picked this part of the world and how does that connect you with the climate thing .
Great question , question again . So different
¶ Enhancing Wildfire Modeling Through Fuels
vegetation . So I picked different fuel areas and different fuel properties and you pointed out one . So the sort of Arctic ones was an example I used because there's been a lot of recent data on Arctic ones . I also picked ones more Mediterranean because I was interested in seeing how there is data on fuel .
So I wanted to look at the data on the different fuel properties of different fuels in different areas to have a better understanding of ignition properties of them . So the first part of fire spread is the fire to ignite right .
And so there's been a lot of work on ignition and I wanted to bring together that work that already exists on ignition , especially North America , Arctic and Europe , to differentiate if I could see which physical variable is most important there . And that brings us back to the sensitivity work . My PhD student , Imogen Richards , does .
So a lot of this work we have already done sort of a feasibility work before in her PhD thesis is to sort of get a better understanding of the physical parameters , sensitivity to change . So if I have , let's say , that Arctic fuel and it had a 10% difference in moisture , how will that change my ignition ?
How will that change my spread , If it's 20% , or if it's a wind change of 10% , or if it's a terrain change , slope change of 10% , how will that change my output ? And so sort of having a database of fuel properties from all those different areas will help me then make a model that's more applicable .
Because if I can say , well , actually , Arctic okay , let's simplify it infinitely let's say Arctic , Polish and Italian terrain , they're all behaving identically , even though they're very different . Now they're not , but hypothetically they are right .
Then the input in my model let's say you're the user who wants to use an operational model when you go click input , you can choose any terrain . Right , it won't matter .
Obviously there are differences , and so then you'll have to choose the terrain that matches most the problem you're trying to solve , and so you'll have a database there that you can use for inputs and you'll know what the sensitivity of that input is .
Yeah . So in other words , you could expect that a fire in Siberia , a fire in southern Italy , in the middle of Poland and in Berkeley , those are four completely different wildfires . And today I don't think the Rothamil model could predict the boreal fire at all because it did not have the smoldering component in it .
So , by definition , you would most likely have different models for each of those .
Yes , and in a way , those differences in your variables would be hidden within the empirical constraints of those models , in each of them , somewhere Exactly of gravity for fires , you know where , instead of defining a model for each of them , you understand what makes the difference between a fire in Calabria versus a fire in Siberia and because you know the
difference , you know when the regime changes and when different variables start to be the key players . That's brilliant . Yeah , exactly that's the goal .
That's all of the problem to solve . But then you obviously need more inputs to do that right . And so let's say that you let's use that remote sensing you mentioned since you mentioned satellites and remote sensing .
If we can then have enhanced remote sensing to say , actually we know what , these are the differences that we're looking for so we can use an input data , that aspect that we , the model , we modelers , say this is what we need and hopefully you can make it automated , as you say , so we can extract some of that data as it comes in right , then we can use
enhanced remote sensing to inform our model . And that's , I think , how you eventually you'll reach a real time risk prediction , because then you'll know some variables about the area you're in , but you don't need to know every single variable , because if you needed to know every single variable your model would take .
It's fantastic from a scientific point of view , but it would take months to run and so it's not very useful for a prediction or real-time prediction .
One thing that I've missed in the project , and it becomes very apparent to me that it's necessary . Perhaps it's there , I just have not seen this how do you quantify the fuel packages ? Do you have any idea for automated quantifying the fuel packages ?
Because if you want it to be super user friendly , uh , you cannot have everything and the user have to provide you correct the distribution of species available in the local flora so .
So I have some ideas on that . I'm still testing them , so I think , yeah , I have a few threads that I'm trying there . On fuel packages , that's a fantastic question , wojciech .
At the moment you can find , for example let's simplify it massively , which I think we'll never get to this point , but let's say you compare that yellow fuel versus green fuel , right Dry versus wet , right . That's for a user very easy to see . Look at the picture like oh , this is yellow , this is green .
I think that's not realistic , like you're never going to get to such a granularity of a seal package , so you need something more detailed . But how detailed to make it is actually part of this project . So so one of my work packages is literally figuring out how , how granular does it have to be ?
so again , sensitivity , where , when it starts making uh , impact , correct ? I'm asking that because you know , know , in the Fire Science Show we are very , to some extent , connected to buildings Because of me I'm a building person . Guillermo once called me a building person . I found that really funny .
Anyway , as a building person , you know , I try to see links between what you are doing and what we're missing in the world of compartment fires , because it's the same , you know , not the exact same problem , but it's the same drivers , you know the same heat transfers , the same pyrolysis process , moisture perhaps to a lesser content , but the prevalence of polymers
and everything to some extent reassembles the moisture problem in wildfires . So whenever you explain the model for wildfires , I in my head it immediately makes the link how could we have something like that in the buildings ? You know , and it is very interesting to me if we could have similar models like I just , you know , have a 360 cam .
I put it into a compartment . It immediately knows what fuels I have in the compartment , builds me a model , solves the CFD and tells me how quickly it's going to flash over and how likely it's going to spread . That would be a phenomenal thing , perhaps if someone's listening and wants to write a second . You see a long compartment fires .
Just the same as Francesco , but in buildings , parts too that could work out .
Anyway , I think this remote identification of fuels at the level of variables that are important to solve , that would be a phenomenal breakthrough , because this is what moves your applicability on your applicability charts , this is what moves it to the right , because that takes so much burden of the user of the software .
And , as you know , and as anyone who looks at wildfire knows , some of those properties are known right . So we know that there's a difference between dead and live fuels . We know there's a difference when we do modeling of the physics . We know there's a difference between bound and free water in a fuel .
We know there's a very , very big difference in fire when your surface area to volume ratio changes , right , that's a very big effect , and so that really changes the ability of your fuel to ignite , right Surface area to volume ratio .
And so there are physical parameters that we know very , very well , and so it's sort of bringing those together for those thresholds into eventually a tool , as you say , that is easy to use , because then it's more applicable .
Yeah . So because you're starting , I'm not going to ask you about what's going to be the end . That's the point of VRC .
Exactly
¶ Evolution of Wildfire Modeling and Research
so . Everything I've been telling you is what I thought about until now . I haven't started this project yet , so it's great because it can evolve as I work through the project . It starts in March .
But I can interrogate you on what we've learned over the last decade . That made it possible ? Because there's a transient nature of the research and ERC is a highly competitive scheme and I bet there have been people applying for ESC grants with wildfires .
When I was attending an ESC training in 2018-19 , I think that's when we first started talking about doing ESCs . At the same time , I just dropped a dream . I'm happy that you fulfilled it for both of us . Anyway , in 2018-19 , I attended this training where a lady told us oh yeah , there's wildfires . This starts to be interesting .
This could be sexy enough for ERC . So I'm sure a lot of people got the same advice . A lot of people probably have tried to , but there have been massive , massive breakthroughs .
We've already mentioned one uh finney and others paper on the role of convective heat transfer , and there was also a brilliant work from uh adamowe Eric Milos about convective heat transfer in thin fuel packages . I had Eric on the podcast . It was brilliant . Any other major enablers of what you're able to do right ?
now A lot of the work from NIST , obviously . So there's been a lot of work in NIST . There's been a lot of work in the US Forest Service .
There's been a lot of recent work in California because there's been a lot of investment in California From the smoldering perspective , professor Rain's work and a lot of those larger scale experiments that came out of his ERC as well when he had an ERC consolidator grant . Those are all fundamental physical parameters that are useful .
There's a lot of models around Europe , a lot of models in France and the French research groups I am terrible with names , so please don't ask me with names but there's a lot , a lot of modeling work that's been done for a lot of the fundamental aspects .
And then from a combustion side , yeah , there's a lot of previous work that we have done on heterogeneity in general in our community . That , I think , is an enabler . You know , without this , you know you asked me .
We discussed DRCs years ago and for me wildfire was always like a fundamental passion of mine , something I was always interested in research-wise in the last years . But the reason I wrote this now is that I couldn't have done this work 10 years before because we didn't have a lot of those physical models and physical understanding .
We didn't have a lot of the sensitivity in our remote sensing capabilities . For example , we didn't have much data on smoldering to flaming transition . It was very limited to very particular fuels , again mostly for the built environment and not for the wildlands . And so , yeah , I think there's been a lot , a lot of work .
I mentioned europe and north america , but also in asia , there's been a lot of work in japan on the different fuels and so a lot of those tools have come together . That's why I said it took me five years almost of thinking about this idea .
We started discussing , I remember , 2018 , 2019 , as you say , but it was sort of bringing together , one , the aspects that already exist and , two , my expertise has changed right , so I could bring in a lot of what I've learned from doing fire for batteries into this , and so a lot of the work I've done on radiation and on fire spread from batteries .
There's a lot of similarities and applicability .
So I think I've learned a lot in the past five years that helped me add to this ground to make it doable , because I think the high risk nature you know when you ride an ERC , there always has to be a high risk , but there has to be a feasibility of your scientific approach and the high risk was there five years ago , like it is today , but the feasibility
changed as the time progressed because I could try different ideas . A lot of that work that Imogen Richards did in her PhD was feasibility trying some of my crazy ideas to see the sensitivity of fuels and so on .
And so , yeah , I think there's been a lot in the literature , but also there's a lot of work that I've done to sort of give myself a reasonable chance of success right In this project once I've written it At the beginning .
The high risk I think everyone , as you say , finds a lot of people find wildfires , and uncontrolled wildfires specifically , a very important problem to tackle . It's just , yeah , how do we make it feasible ?
I haven't picked on that uncontrolled . Can you elaborate ?
on that ? Yeah , so I say uncontrolled because sometimes we control fire spread so we want fire to start . Fire management policy often has controlled fire , so you want things to burn because it frees up areas that could then potentially be fuel sources for very , very large fires , and those fires we know how to predict pretty well . The controlled fires .
Uncontrolled is where we are not controlling . There's a lot of other variables that might've accidentally started . It might've we might not know all the fuel parameters . So control versus uncontrolled for me the definition changes . But I call uncontrolled fires the ones that we are not starting and containing intentionally .
But if not discretized between good and bad fires , because there are uncontrolled fires , like savannah fires , which are essential for the ecosystem and we're not really aiming on suppressing those Absolutely .
So the purpose of my work is not to decide which fire is a good one and which one is a bad one . There's a lot of ecological aspects there that I do not have the expertise to tackle . So I think , yeah , between good and bad fires there's a lot of very interesting work . It's just it's outside the realm of my expertise so I contain myself to .
I want to understand the fire spread and the transition for fire spreads . I think there's lots of other work to be done on wildfires . You know this is one project of five years . I think there is enough work from fundamental aspects of wildfires that could take on . You know , 50 years worth of projects . And the ecological aspects there is very important .
You want an ecosystem to be balanced , and so sometimes you need in fact , very often you do need fires to ensure that you have new fauna , you have an environment that is suitable for the species that are living there .
And well , another aspect that is kind of missing and I find it interesting because it's an angle that a lot of people take on wildfire problem , which is the wildfire urban interface , wui as they tend to call it and my automatic translator always collapses when it hears WUI . Anyway , there's no WUI in this project . It's not human-oriented .
You don't talk about the human sources of ignition or human-related hazards and how that affects wildfires . For you it's just the fundamental combustion fires and that's it . No matter if it's started by a human or naturally .
So for this project the short answer is yes . In my research , no , in the sense that you know , Abdullah Rehman is a recent PhD student in my group and he focuses on refires , and so I think there's a lot of aspects there that are very important and we are actually working on that in my group . But for here I was more interested in the fundamentals .
Again , I couldn't tackle everything . One of the aspects that I think and I think I even put it in my in my proposal is one of the aspects that fundamentally affects those transitions and those changes are the changes in our environment .
Right , and so if you have a wildland urban interface versus a pure wildland area , versus a concrete building inside , right , your fire scenario is different because your boundary condition is different . So that could be an input . But this grant itself was not primarily focused on that aspect , the human aspect . I was really interested in the fundamental .
But again , in my group we do work on this and Abdullah has just started his PhD , so we'll see how it goes . He's a month and a half in , so plenty of time to develop his ideas . But he's working on wild alabaster face work as part of the Leverhulme Trust Wildfire Center .
Fantastic . I'll now let you summarize in a few sentences where you hope to be in five years after finishing this grant and afterwards .
I would love to pick your brain because there's a lot of young academics listening to this podcast and obviously that that's a big part of the audience and you achieve the Holy grail for researchers and scholars who are just starting .
You just got the ERC starting grant , so if I could pick your brain for a few minutes about the route to getting there and let's wrap up the meaty part of the interview and go into coaching session afterwards , are you ?
fine with that , absolutely , if I can help . Yes , I mean okay . So if I have to summarize my project in five years , where do I want to be ? Definitely the development of a new prediction tool , or prediction tools , plural , as you said , it might vary . I want to train engineers and modelers to adopt to changing scenarios .
You know this project will have PhD students and postdocs and I want to train them to adapt because then they will bring in future work , hopefully themselves , and they can start new strands .
And then , from a physics perspective , I really want to say that in five years we have identified distinct driving , heat transfer and chemical mechanism thresholds for varying scales of fire . That , I would say , are my sort of top three things in five years . And the fourth one is sort of a wishlist for me is engage with you stakeholders .
You said there's risk maps , there's a lot of operational work being done and I would hope that in five years time I could engage with you . You stakeholders say look , this is the fundamental work we've done , this is a tool , can this be implemented , can this be used ? I would say those are the four .
If I have to say four things , those are the four things that I want , if you ask me , in 10 years . I would hope this work because this is a five-year project , but I would hope this work in 10 years time would have hopefully started .
I would say being able to have a holistic predictive fire model based on identifiable fuel landscape that gives you real-time risk prediction and fuel management . But that's in 10 years , I would say .
I would say the five years are the fourth point I gave you , but I would hope in the field in 10 years we are at that real time risk prediction and field management .
Brilliant and I will be monitoring that closely and follow up with you
¶ Transitioning to Wildfire Research and ERC
very often on that . So let's talk about the journey to ERC because , as I said , there's multiple young researchers listening to this podcast not only young , but , like ERC , is open to anyone and everyone . In academia , there are those few holy grails you can get in academia .
You know full professorship and the ERC grants I would say are also kind of a holy grail . When did it really start ? When did you decide this is something to pursue and how much of your efforts was to optimize for this ?
Because I've been on the journey as well and I know that C-Grant is not something you wake up on a Sunday morning and you start writing on a Monday . It's a process . So what was the time horizon for this ?
for you . I think it changes person by person . I can tell you my experience . So my experience is I think there's always a little bit of luck . So you know , I'm very , very fortunate , I'm very lucky to have this grant .
But my experience was I started my independent academic career five , six , six years ago and I had a very supportive mentor , my PhD supervisor , guillermo Reyn , who encouraged me to sort of think about my own ideas and not just the projects I was working on . And I was thinking of other ideas and other projects .
But as I kept on doing my work and writing proposals because as an academic you need proposals to fund your group , right , you need funding to hire PhD students and postdocs my work was sort of moving more and more in the battery direction and I was learning lots of new skills .
But I still had this fundamental question that I mentioned at the start about wildfires , because again , it's a problem that affects my area of the world in Italy as well , and I was very interested . So I was reading up on papers in the area and I had started a PhD student in the area .
In fact , my first PhD student at King's was on wildfires and not on batteries , because it was an area I really wanted to grow in , where I didn't have funding but I wanted to learn more , and so it was a learning process for me .
And then it was iterative in the sense that I wrote my first proposal , not for ERC I always had in the back of my mind ERC but I wrote some funding proposals in the UK and they didn't get funded . But I got some feedback right and so it was a feedback mechanism of this is an idea .
It was for smaller projects , like two-year projects or three-year projects , and then I wrote a seven-year project , one and I had to write a short summary of it to see if I would be selected for the next stages , and that's where I sort of spent a long time two page on where do I want to be in seven years , and this was something that kept coming up .
Now that didn't go through .
So this was something you applied with in UK for the lower rank grant . Yeah , so part of this not all of this right .
So part of these ideas , so part of these , let's say so , there's a lot of different parts of this grant and parts of these ideas I have been developing for other grants .
Then I spent a little bit of time putting all of those ideas together into something bigger , because I realized that each one of those pieces of the puzzle could bring a more useful fundamental theory right , a useful fundamental tool . And so I would say it was iterative in the sense that they were all areas that I was interested in .
And then there were new papers coming out in the field showing different things . I say , oh , actually there's now enough information to try and do some of the things I wanted to do on a more large scale . So bring in that remote sensing aspect and so on . And so that was sort of the stage of writing , and that's how I came up with this idea .
Then obviously I had to flesh it out , so then I put things together . Some of the ideas were clashing so I had to rewrite some of the bits to make sure I came up with a holistic idea I guess that's from a writing perspective In terms of getting the grant itself .
Then , once you're invited for an interview for an ERC , so you've written a proposal , then it's getting feedback right . So when you do the interview for the ERC , you have to give a five-minute pitch . And so when you do the interview for the ERC , you have to give a five-minute pitch .
And I wrote my five-minute pitch and I asked a lot of professors in the fire science community if they could give me the time to listen and give me feedback . And many of these professors I had never met and they were very , very kind and they said absolutely , and so it's reach out to the wider community .
And so I got lots of feedback on my five-minute pitch from many different people , my five minute pitch from many different people , and I then implemented them because they told me okay , this is what's understandable , this was not understandable in my idea , these are some of the holes , and so that helped me refine a little bit my sort of pitch , and so I would
say that aspect was very , very useful , as well as getting feedback from peers , because you don't , I don't know everything . Most young academics don't know everything , and so it's very , very useful to see what others think of sort of your vision , let's say .
In fact , wojciech , I discussed my vision with you in the past as well , I would like to move back , yeah .
Because also , no , at some point you were unsure which direction to go , because you obviously are very strong in batteries , right ? So I would say , like the natural consequence of your involvement with battery fires , for which you've already built your name in the industry , when did you decide it's going to be wildfire , not battery grant ?
and why ? Very good question . So yeah , as you said , a lot of my recent work in fact almost all of my papers in the last four years have been on battery fires , and so my CV , as you say , reads much more targeted towards writing this on battery fires . But then there's lots of interesting work to do on battery fires and I have projects on battery fires .
But I thought if I'm writing an ERC , I want to work on something that I think is going to have a very , very long and large impact , and it's something that can only be funded and can only be done if I have enough resources for something very large scale and for battery fires , I can break down those problems into smaller problems and I can get those funded .
I think to do a fundamental model like the one I described here is not possible with smaller projects , and that's what I realized when I was writing the smaller projects is you don't have enough data , and so I said I will write in the ERC on wildfire . So I said I will write in the ERC on wildfire and it is a risk , as you said .
It was a risk because all my recent papers were not . I have papers on wildfires , but all my recent papers were not on wildfires but I brought in and so when I was writing it .
So let's say that often you're writing your ERC on something very different to what you did your PhD or postdocs on , because that's your fundamental idea but bring in the expertise that you've developed , the expertise that you've developed , and so I brought in a lot of the methods that I've developed doing battery fires into this . So I've learned a lot .
I do a lot of fire modeling for battery fires and I learned a lot doing the modeling pros and cons and so I brought a lot of those in , especially on heat fluxes and things like this .
¶ Optimizing Research Proposals for Impact
And did you optimize yourself as a scientist a lot for this , like choosing the places where you publish , I don't know choosing the activities you engage for ? Was this driven by your willingness to do ?
ERC . So short answer is no . So my philosophy is I should only publish work if it's impactful . So maybe I publish a little bit less often than I should , but no , so I did not sort of develop my CV around this grant . I developed my research themes around the work I think is interesting .
Obviously , some of your grants might be based on what is fundable , right . So if at the moment there is no wildfire funding ever anywhere , then you have to apply for other projects , right , built environment and so on .
But because , again , you need to keep your group going and so some of that is driven by the market in the sense of what is fundable , research , wise . But no , I did not develop my CV around it . But I would encourage anyone to engage .
And you know , I think it was extremely useful for me , for example , to do the fire science show with you when you first first started the first . Why was what ? Episode 40 ? Something ?
Because it got to my work scene , so I got other people asking me about some of the things I was doing , and so it also helped me make new contacts and learn a lot more from other groups , because I can't read everything that comes out in the literature , but if somebody says , oh , we've been working on this , for me it's great , and I say , oh , I can read
this now , right , and so I think , taking the opportunities for the outreach , taking the opportunities , for example , to review right , I think it's very important in our field to also help the growth of the field . But no , I would say , you know , my CV was not driven around the ERC and also my daytime job .
You know I do research but I also have to teach , I have to do admin , I'm an academic , so I have a lot of other tasks at the university and so I can't focus all of my time on research .
And so I can't optimize my CV around research , but only research . So I've read the B1 of your project and I've also read the B1 of Ruben's project , which was I think it was a year ago or two years ago that he got his grant . Yeah , he was also in the Fire Science Show . Anyway , don't get offended , but those are basic .
Those are a summary of good ideas . They don't contain a hardcore physics . They don't have like multi-level drawings of like seven dimensional correlations between stuff . Those are just simple , powerful ideas explained in a pretty simple way . I think it's actually a challenge to talk about complex problems in a basic way that's understandable .
I think that's the hell of a challenge . I guess this is the outcome of the process and it had to be optimized for that . Like yes , how hard do you find to formulate those ideas in this simple way ? And how can one , a young academic , train themselves in that skill ?
You know , because me working with my students nowadays , I find people having ease to write a 15-page paper about something , but when they have to do you know , proceedings of Combustion Institute-style paper , when it's six pages , it's such a pain to collapse that in a way it does not lose the depth but it's more approachable .
I think this is a critical skill for a high impact scientist . How do you get that ?
skill , so I guess a part of it developed . Also , I'm on panels that do internal reviews of grants at King's and so I have to read grants in a very short time , or the short part of a grant in an area that's not mine , and sometimes when I first started doing that , when I first became an academic , I was very struggling .
I was like this is very technical , what is your fundamental question ? And so I think it's mentoring there , in the sense that , for example , my head of department who used to chair these panels , barbara Schollack , was .
Barbara Schollack was extremely useful in this because she would always say you need to make it very clear what your work means to the lay scientist . Not the lay person , but the lay scientist . Can me and you are both in fire science , but can somebody in material science understand the basics of what I'm trying to do ?
And so write the basic introduction , right , the introduction of your proposal . That's what your B1 is . Right , the introduction of your proposal . The introduction has to be something that another engineer who's not in your field can understand , and that took me a while .
So B1 , so actually B2 was , which is the long technical bit was the much easier bit to write , because there you put all the methods , you put all the physics . Those are things you're comfortable with . Then having to shorten it to something that's much more understandable and digestible in a short amount of space is , I think , a little bit harder .
And that took going through and iterating and having feedback on it as well , like if my introduction to a colleague who does not work in my area and he reads it and says I have no idea what you're trying to do , it means that I need to simplify it and there , okay . So when you say optimizing , so you made me think of B1 .
So my advice is also for your CV . So B1 has two parts . It has the summary of your research goal and has a two page or three page summary of you . And in the summary of you , obviously you have to do research achievements and you have to do peer recognition . Obviously , pick from your CV the bits that most portray what research you're trying to do .
Right , if you're trying to do work on wildfires and all the papers you've picked are on facade fires , right , they're very different problems . You either have to explain why or you have to integrate it . So , obviously , for your research achievements , pick the ones that go with the narrative of what you're proposing the most .
That would be my suggestion , yeah yeah , I find this being a very big challenge to write those short proposals that go into panel . And we have projects like that also in Poland that incorporate the same model a long , technical one that goes to technical reviewers but first it's filtered by a panel .
So the reason is that we don't have enough reviewers , so we have to send to review only the things that we think are worthy enough .
You know , and that's the first round you have to go through as a student , and I also find it very difficult to be able to write a summary that's interesting enough for a general audience or general technical audience because it's technical people who are going to be judging it and to be worthy sending .
And how much time overall took you to write , like if you had to give me an ?
hour or so days of work ? It's hard to say because , as I said , I've been writing smaller proposals as well , so it's very hard to say it was an iterative process over the years . I'd say I thought about the idea seriously for many years and then I would say the six months before the deadline is really where I said , okay , like now , how do I make this ?
When I decided I was going to apply for the ERC starting out , which was my final year , so I couldn't apply again , I applied the final year of eligibility for age from PhD . I said , okay , if this is what I want to write , how will I write it into an ERC ? And that was maybe that . Yeah , six months before submission .
That's the writing and the refining process , right , yeah , yeah , yeah .
And then I would say the last month was I actually , I think I submitted 10 days before the deadline because I was coming to Japan , like you , for a conference the day of the deadline . We were at a conference , right , and so I submitted 10 days before , but sort of the month before the deadline . That was really crunch time of really refine .
You have the idea , you have everything down , really refine it , make it more legible , make diagrams . You know the diagrams . I found very useful for me to think about the idea by making diagrams of them , and that was sort of in the last month especially . And there will never be a perfect proposal .
When I reread it , when I had the interview , I said , oh , I would change this , I would change this . Oh , you know , I could add this paper , I could add this . There's always things you can change . There's never going to be the perfect research proposal , in my opinion , and that's good because science moves on and things change .
But yeah , I think you'll never reach perfection . But , yeah , make it readable is my advice , because your panel who reads it is not all going to be fire scientists . In fact , it's very unlikely that you have a panel of fire scientists reading your proposals . Our field is relatively small in engineering compared to other fields .
I think there are some high-level fire scientists who could go to those panels , so perhaps you would meet them , but again , it's just one person within the panel and they could be excluded for bias , for example . So yeah , it's challenging overall , anyway , and they could be excluded for bias , for example .
So yeah , it's challenging overall , anyway , francesco , once again congratulations on ESC , thank you , and I want to just say there will be ads coming out for PhD students and postdocs , so if anyone listening is interested in a PhD or a postdoc in the topic , please do send me an email . Hopefully you'll put my email in the summary . I will .
And we can also say that being a part of ESC grants is giving you a very good idea of how to run one in the future , because you also were a part of Guillermo's ERC on smoldering fires and now here you are running your own , so perhaps it's a good step in to the world of big science , and I also believe that working underneath you would be an amazing
thing . So look up for those announcements and all the best , francesco . Thank you so much , oce , and that's it Once again . Congratulations , francesco . Years ago , we've talked about writing ESC grants . At the very same time , I've dropped the dream . You followed the dream and I am more than happy that you have got it .
It's amazing and for all you listening , especially young scholars , what does an ERC grant also mean to the community is jobs . Francesco will be looking for two PhD students . He will be looking for two postdocs . So these are very good positions , well-funded , very prestigious . These are very good positions , well-funded , very prestigious .
I think it's a very good idea to do your postdoc within an ERC grant , because it also helps you along the way . So I can just recommend that Keep your eyes open on when the position is open and you might want to join Francesco in his research For the grant itself .
¶ ERC Funding for Wildfire Prediction
As you could imagine from the ERC scheme , this is a pretty complicated thing . In fact , this is something that Francesco has said .
He tried to build up with smaller grants , with smaller funding , but eventually he realized something of that scale like a really big model for wildfire prediction that combines the combustion , the fuel management , the atmospheric effects , remote sensing , etc . Is impossible to build with smaller chunks of work .
You need a really big , dedicated project to do this and this ERC answers that need .
So I'm really fond to have such a model in a few years and I'm really sure that some of the ideas that are developed for the ERC scheme will also be useful for the fire science community at large , also in the building space , in the compartment fire space , in the vehicle space , in the atlantic space , wherever , because fire science is kind of universal .
And that would be it for the episode today . Thank you for being here with me and , as always , next Wednesday I'll have even more fire science for you . So see you there . Bye , thank you .