In-depth explainers on combustion, fire testing, battery safety, and risk assessment — free and open to everyone, written by a postdoctoral researcher in battery fire safety.
Test methods, risk analysis, and the standards behind them — the technical core of PyroRisk.
The science behind real-world fire risks at home and on the road.
Explore the science of fire — from radical chain reactions and flame anatomy to flashover physics and why modern homes burn 7x faster than 1950s ones.
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Pyrolysis — heat breaking molecular bonds without oxygen — drives wildfires, battery thermal runaway, biochar, plastic recycling, and even coffee roasting.
Why heat release rate is the single most important number in fire science: how labs measure it, what it predicts, and why it outranks smoke toxicity.
No. Across U.S., Swedish, Australian, Norwegian, and Polish data, electric vehicles catch fire 20 to 80 times less often than gasoline cars per registered vehicle. EV fires are harder to extinguish, however, because a battery in thermal runaway generates its own heat and oxygen.
Full analysis →Flashover happens when the hot smoke layer under the ceiling reaches roughly 500 to 600 °C and radiates about 20 kW/m² down onto the room, so every exposed combustible surface ignites almost at once. A dry Christmas tree releases enough heat to flash over a living room in under a minute.
Full analysis →Yes — a LiPo battery is a lithium-ion battery. The "polymer" refers only to the gel electrolyte and pouch packaging, not to a different chemistry, so LiPo cells carry the same thermal-runaway fire risks as any other lithium-ion cell.
Full analysis →Lint is finely divided cellulose with an enormous surface-area-to-mass ratio, so it ignites easily and burns fast. When it accumulates around the heater and vent duct, one hot spot is enough — which is why most dryer fires start with lint, and why cleaning the filter every load matters.
Full analysis →In most fatal fires, victims are overcome by toxic gases before flames ever reach them. Carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide concentrate in the hot upper smoke layer, and a few breaths of it can incapacitate — which is why staying low and getting out early decides survival.
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Convection burns up; radiation burns across. How radiant heat, the T⁴ law, and view factors decide whether fire ignites the house next door.
Slow, medium, fast, ultrafast: how the t-squared curve turns fire growth into numbers, and why modern fuels outrun its four classes.
Fire has no single temperature. The adiabatic flame temperature sets a 1,950 °C ceiling, yet real fires burn at 800–1,200 °C. Here is why.
Combustion, flames, pyrolysis, and heat transfer.
Cone calorimetry, FTIR, fire test standards.
Li-ion thermal runaway and abuse testing.
Risk analysis methods and case studies.
Suppression, detection, regulation, building codes.
Practical fire safety for home and work.