233 - Safety as a moving target with Danielle Antonelis

WEBVTT

00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:04.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show, welcome to year 2026.

00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:11.679
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I hope it's a great year for fire safety engineering despite it started with like quite a horrible fire in Switzerland.

00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:20.719
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I hope this year brings us a lot of new knowledge, a lot of new experiences and a lot of new ways to improve fire safety globally.

00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:31.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Um four years ago, uh almost 200 episodes ago, in episode 34, I have interviewed Danielle Antonelis, the founder of Kindling.

00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:44.479
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Kindling as a nonprofit is trying to deliver fire safety to everyone across the globe with a strong focus on people in low resource settlements.

00:00:44.479 --> 00:01:00.640
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Four years ago, Danielle has told me about what her vision for kindling is, what the grand plan is, how they want to impact the stuff that has been happening in informal settlements and low income settlings in all across the globe.

00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:13.840
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And today, four years later, uh a lot has happened, and today we can talk about accomplishments and about how the plan has been implemented, what work has been done, what works and what doesn't work.

00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:18.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So here I sit down with Danielle Antonelis once again and discuss kindling.

00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:20.879
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's far like the previous talk.

00:01:20.879 --> 00:01:22.799
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'm not sure if you listened to that episode.

00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:28.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>For me it was one of the most moving and uh most important episodes I've recorded.

00:01:28.079 --> 00:01:35.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Um it's far more than just talking about how we can change safety in low resource settings.

00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:40.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>We discussed how governmental systems fail.

00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:49.680
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How safety as defined as an industry standard is actually the minimum acceptable, and there's very little you can offer to people below that level.

00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:56.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How that level of safety is inaccessible in some parts of the world, but yet you can still do a lot of change.

00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:03.200
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You cannot provide safety, but you can clearly improve whatever safety level they have.

00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:18.719
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>We talk about the importance of education, the importance of sharing data, sharing data in a way that allows meaningful actions to happen, sharing data with stakeholders in mind, and processing curating that so it's useful to them.

00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:22.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>A lot of that is covered in this discussion along the lines.

00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:40.159
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So even if you are not that interested in the problems of fire safety in informal settlements, I think there's a lot to learn from this episode in terms of how do we provide safety, what is safety, and how to communicate it outside of the world of fire safety engineering.

00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:42.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So I guess that's it.

00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.479
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Let's win the intro and jump into the episode.

00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:50.639
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Welcome to the Firescience Show.

00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:54.159
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>My name is Vojinsky, and I will be your host.

00:02:54.159 --> 00:03:37.439
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>As the UK leading independent fire consultancy, OFR's globally established team have developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise with colleagues working across the world to help protect people, property, and the planet.

00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:53.680
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Established in the UK in 2016 as a startup business by two highly experienced fire engineering consultants, the business continues to grow at a phenomenal rate with offices across the country in eight locations, from Edinburgh to Bath, and plans for future expansions.

00:03:53.680 --> 00:04:02.479
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>If you're keen to find out more or join OFR consultants during this exciting period of growth, visit their website at ofrconsultants.com.

00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:04.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And now back to the episode.

00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:05.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hello everybody.

00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:08.560
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I am joined today once again by Danielle Antonellis from Kindling.

00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:09.360
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hey Danielle.

00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:10.800
<v Danielle Antonellis>Hi, how are you doing today?

00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:12.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>All good, all good.

00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh welcome back to the podcast after a wow, like four years.

00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:16.319
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's been a while.

00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:17.839
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, thanks for having me back.

00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:22.160
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, that's now have like five hours of updates on what has happened since then.

00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:23.439
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Just kidding, just kidding.

00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:26.480
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh but updates is what I want to get today.

00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:31.279
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I know Kindling has been uh growing, maturing, building up.

00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:34.399
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How those recent four years have been for you?

00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:39.600
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Are you still uh enjoying it in the same way you did uh four years ago when we started?

00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:42.959
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, I can't believe that kindling is becoming what it is.

00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:52.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>So for as a founder, it's a joy to see the organization grow, to see other people benefiting from it, to see other staff members excited about what we're doing.

00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:54.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we've changed a lot in the last four years.

00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:58.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think four years ago when we talked, Kindling was still this kind of idea.

00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:03.839
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It was an aspiration, it was something that you had the plan, like there was a plan.

00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:06.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>There was a plan, but we didn't execute the plan, right?

00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:11.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>Like we were just we were trying to figure out how the puzzle pieces could go together.

00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:18.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>And now four years later, we've actually done a lot, and now we can say what works, what doesn't work.

00:05:18.079 --> 00:05:19.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're still trialing things.

00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:21.680
<v Danielle Antonellis>I don't think experimentation will ever leave us.

00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:26.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>That's part of our identity, but um, but we're to show for for it over the last four years.

00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:34.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And uh the core, the idea, the concept, fire safety for all, is that did that evolve in any way?

00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:37.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think we've gotten a better understanding of what it means, but no.

00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:38.800
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, it's the exact same thing.

00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:40.959
<v Danielle Antonellis>Fire safety for all is still our mission.

00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:44.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're more dedicated to it now than we ever have been.

00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:51.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think the more we work and the more we get to know people, we realize just how devastating fire is for so many people around the world.

00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:55.439
<v Danielle Antonellis>Obviously, there's statistics you can look at that show you just how many people are affected.

00:05:55.439 --> 00:06:01.040
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, you know, the 1 billion people living in formal supplements are clearly very vulnerable compared to a lot of others.

00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:06.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>But what I've really learned over the last four years is just how deep the impact of these fires go.

00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:16.319
<v Danielle Antonellis>In the beginning, I didn't realize how much trauma and mental health would form part of our work, but actually it's such a big recurring theme with people who have gone through this.

00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:18.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, yeah, the mission has never been more important.

00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:26.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So you evolved from uh a fire safety engineer, uh which is your uh identity, I guess.

00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:37.680
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh uh looking at casualties and then the monetary loss, and now you you you understand much better the other side of the equation, which is all the indirect or personal costs of the fires.

00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:41.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, I mean, I've joked that I'm a recovering fire engineer.

00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:58.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, so I still obviously have that core discipline and understanding which frames everything that we do, but I very much have learned a lot about social sciences and just society in general, how governance systems work, like more about culture and people's decision making.

00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:03.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so, yeah, it's been a real expansive process for me personally.

00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:07.120
<v Danielle Antonellis>And also, I think our team is reflecting that learning journey, right?

00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:11.040
<v Danielle Antonellis>We don't have a bunch of fire engineers working together in isolation.

00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:16.399
<v Danielle Antonellis>We have a very diverse team and we bring in people that help us understand these complexities.

00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:25.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Were you able to figure out this definition of safety by your stakeholders, like the people who you work with, who you work for, how they understand safety?

00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:33.839
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Because when you were starting, you obviously did not have that much like, you know, uh practical experience on on the ground, you know, working with these people.

00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:39.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I wonder if they understand the fire safety in the same way as we fire engineers do.

00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:40.959
<v Danielle Antonellis>That's such an interesting question.

00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:44.560
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, I mean, safety is a moving target, right?

00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.680
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's no one version of safety that applies to everybody.

00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:50.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think when we look at like codes and standards, we tend to think that way.

00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:53.439
<v Danielle Antonellis>We tend to say, like, here's the level of safety you're trying to achieve.

00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:58.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>If you're doing performance-based design, make sure you hit that or at least, you know, or do better.

00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:02.560
<v Danielle Antonellis>We can't afford to think that way in the work that we do.

00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:06.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>We don't have those regulatory systems that are applied the same way.

00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:12.399
<v Danielle Antonellis>We really have to go off the alert model of like what is as safe as reasonably practicable.

00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:22.160
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, and when we think about that in collaboration with residents, they are the ones telling us what is reasonably practicable, right?

00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:28.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>It's a collaborative process where they're constantly telling us, you know, what they care about, what they're worried about.

00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:43.919
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're telling them as much as we can about the science and trying to share what we know about the built environment, um, which they also are collaboratively defining with us because we don't know a lot of things and they don't know a lot of things, so we come together and learn more together.

00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:47.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so safety is very much this moving target.

00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:52.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we're never going to achieve fire safety for all in the short term, not my lifetime.

00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:00.080
<v Danielle Antonellis>Not only is the for all part really hard because there's just so many people, but fire safety is not clear.

00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:06.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think when people look at the projects we have, and at the end of the project they say, okay, did you achieve fire safety?

00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:09.600
<v Danielle Antonellis>Most people will look at it and go, No, that's still not very safe.

00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:15.919
<v Danielle Antonellis>But if you look at where it was before and the incremental changes that are happening, it is much safer.

00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:18.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>So it's not the easiest thing to define still.

00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.080
<v Danielle Antonellis>And I don't expect that to change quickly.

00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:24.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And it's not just a function of state that you achieve it and it's there.

00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:30.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's it's has to be maintained, it has to evolve, it has to follow the challenges, right?

00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:32.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, I mean, fire safety is a practice, not a state.

00:09:32.879 --> 00:09:36.399
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, you know, we always say this for the communities we work with.

00:09:36.399 --> 00:09:45.759
<v Danielle Antonellis>Like if we if you learn fire safety principles, if you engage with the project and then you don't think about it for six months, and we come back and quiz you about the concepts, you're probably not gonna remember them.

00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>When a fire happens, you may not know what to do, right?

00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:49.679
<v Danielle Antonellis>It's a practice.

00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:55.120
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're constantly learning, engaging, seeing what's possible for risk reduction.

00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:59.919
<v Danielle Antonellis>But also, I mean, think of a firefighter who hasn't touched a fire hose in 10 years.

00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:04.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>You're not gonna feel the same way picking up that hose as if they pick it up every day.

00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:05.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Absolutely, absolutely.

00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:08.960
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So geographically, uh, where did Kindling land?

00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:14.399
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like what are the places of the world that you were capable of making impact in?

00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:15.360
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'm I'm really curious.

00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:19.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>So when we started, we were a US-based nonprofit organization.

00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:24.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>We still are, so I'm from Massachusetts, that's kind of where our headquarters are.

00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:28.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>In 2024, we started a second branch of Kindling, essentially.

00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:33.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we now have Kindling Safety NPC, which is a South African entity.

00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:37.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>South Africa is our is our other home in Kindling.

00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:41.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>So that's in Cape Town, and I can tell you why Cape Town is so special.

00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:52.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, but then we also work internationally, um, not necessarily with kind of offices, but through remote work or travel to different places.

00:10:52.000 --> 00:11:01.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we've done work in Somaliland, we've done work in India, Bangladesh, and a lot of our engagement with the humanitarian sector is very global in nature.

00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:05.679
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we're talking to people who are responding to humanitarian crises all over the world.

00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:14.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um recently we've been collaborating with someone in Nigeria around just storytelling about what's been going on there with fire and fire safety.

00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:25.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>We've done work uh to provide some guidance in Gaza, in Turkey, and we have conversations regularly with people who are responding in places all over the world.

00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:40.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Fantastic that this is landing impact uh all over the place and uh creates opportunity to share experiences of what works, what doesn't work, and and perhaps find some you know optimized strategies that can be perfected over the the implementations.

00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:56.879
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Um when I was interrogating you the previous time, uh four years ago, we we have agreed on a framework which was coming from uh from a report that that was published back then where you talked about four core uh areas of activities for kindling.

00:11:56.879 --> 00:12:00.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh I taken notes uh and I listed them.

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.159
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>There's absolutely five of them, Danielle.

00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:11.279
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like we're horrible, like but yeah, let's let's go through the four or five-ish uh activities back then, 2021.

00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:17.360
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh it was research, education, training, advocacy, and pilot projects.

00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.799
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I wonder what has been the evolution of those.

00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:25.200
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh after we give a kind of general idea, we'll we'll jump into the details.

00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:25.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>Cool.

00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:31.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>So those are still very much our core areas of focus, but yeah, there's no longer five, there's four.

00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:33.759
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think we're counting better now.

00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:44.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we have research and advocacy haven't changed, they're still uh two of the pillars, and then education and training have collapsed into learning.

00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:47.919
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, and the last one, pilot projects, has become practice.

00:12:48.159 --> 00:12:50.320
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Well, it's I mean, is name changes.

00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:54.080
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh sometimes name changes are profound, sometimes they're just rebranding.

00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:56.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, we'll we'll we'll learn in in a second.

00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:58.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Let's let's tackle them one by one.

00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:02.080
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh so in the world of research, I cannot wait to talk about this one.

00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:11.679
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Tell tell me what what has been the big things in Qin Ling and what was your research agenda, let's say, for for the last years and and for the upcoming future.

00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:19.600
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, so I can't talk about research without mentioning and thanking the UL Fire Safety Research Institute, right?

00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:20.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>First and foremost.

00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:32.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>So FSRI, or what is now known as ULRI, has been incredibly important in our evolution over the last few years and being able to fund some very, very ambitious work.

00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:37.600
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so with research, that meant large-scale fire experiments, first and foremost.

00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:48.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>We've also been doing work to really understand what those kind of socio-technical challenges are in informal settlements, how risk emerges, how risk is governed.

00:13:48.159 --> 00:13:54.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>That's mostly work we did with the Royal Academy of Engineering in their safer complex systems program.

00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:06.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so, um, you know, to the non-fire science and fire engineering community, I say we built 20 houses and we burnt them down for science, and that tends to get a lot of eyes pop out of heads, but it is exactly what we did, right?

00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:20.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, so there's been a lot of technical work as well as kind of research that's trying to understand how fire risk emerges, why it emerges, and what the responses are from a governance point of view.

00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:30.399
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>In terms of those research, I'm obviously interested that I I was to some extent participating in this, and for which I'm very, very glad and happy to be a little part of this major project.

00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:34.080
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>What was the goal of this large fire experimentation?

00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:38.480
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Because I I guess a lot of people, a lot of listeners will be interested.

00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:40.720
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Everyone likes a good large fire.

00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:45.759
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, I think we're all um pyros, but in a safe way, in a positive way.

00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:53.919
<v Danielle Antonellis>So if you look at informal settlements and humanitarian settings globally, you're gonna see an incredible amount of diversity.

00:14:53.919 --> 00:15:13.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>You're gonna see mud shelters, you're gonna see people using metal sheeting, um, you'll see people using bamboo, you'll see, you know, I'm I'm focusing on materials because that's related to the to the project itself, but you're gonna see a lot of different materials, you're gonna see different geometries, you're gonna see people living in just very diverse settings, right?

00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:26.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so when you look at that from a fire engineering perspective, a lot of questions emerge about how how would fires behave in these different structures, what would fire spread look like in communities built with these structures?

00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:31.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>And those are very core questions if we want to apply fire engineering into these spaces.

00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:36.879
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, unfortunately, we don't have the data sets that we often rely on when we're doing fire engineering design.

00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:43.120
<v Danielle Antonellis>So this was kind of the core, uh, the core problem that the fire experiments are responding to.

00:15:43.120 --> 00:16:17.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>How do we start to understand these areas without having to do experimentation on every single shelter type globally, which is just completely so basically we designed a research program focused on trying to find patterns among very diverse sets of shelters, looking, we had a theory or hypothesis about kind of how things might be categorized based off of how things would likely burn, if we would expect compartment fire behavior, if we would expect, you know, burning of the facade system, if we expect the roof to burn through.

00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:29.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>You know, these things all have a huge impact on um not only the behavior at the shelter level, but on how that shelter becomes a hazard to neighboring structures.

00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:33.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so that was kind of the core idea behind the experiments.

00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:41.279
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And the diversity uh does it represent like geographical diversity, or is it even a diversity within the, I don't know, Cape Town?

00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:46.080
<v Danielle Antonellis>So very much geographic, trying to understand at a global level.

00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:54.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we developed a database of over 450 shelters around the world from 90 plus countries.

00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:55.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>That was the first step.

00:16:55.440 --> 00:17:04.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, trying to see what are the most common shelter types and what are they built of, where are the windows and doors, just trying to see what that looks like overall.

00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:10.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>And then we were able to kind of cluster those and make decisions about the the program from there.

00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:16.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>There's your video from the burn from your website now going on loop on my page as you talk.

00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:17.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'm I keep looking at that.

00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:19.839
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>There's two massive cribs.

00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:22.880
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I assume this was just some general uh fire load.

00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:26.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You didn't vary the fire loads within the compartments in that, right?

00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:27.359
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, exactly.

00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:31.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>We were trying to push the compartments to flash over.

00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:38.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>So that is purely a fuel load to be able to assess the performance of the structure, not uh the actual material.

00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:38.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah.

00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:40.960
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh no, two 20 experiments.

00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:43.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I know the scale, it it it has been massive.

00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:45.839
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So congratulations on putting that.

00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:54.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I know that the stuff is being worked, uh, everyone's crossing fingers for the IFSS paper, and there has been Interflamm paper, right?

00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:55.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So something is published already.

00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we we did present at InterFlam.

00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:03.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>We were hoping to publish that paper through InterFLAM because they obviously put their papers through.

00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:08.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>We didn't end up applying to IAFSS just with timelines, unfortunately.

00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:11.359
<v Danielle Antonellis>But it would have been a great opportunity.

00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:13.359
<v Danielle Antonellis>Obviously, that's an amazing conference.

00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:17.759
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so, so yeah, we we have that paper coming out hopefully soon.

00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:23.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>But I think what we're most excited about is actually just getting some of the data out into the world.

00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:28.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>So next year, early in the year, we'll be self-publishing a lot of this data and information.

00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:36.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>You know, scientific journal papers are really important to be able to make sure that this is entering into the academic spaces that it needs to.

00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:49.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, but the first priority for us is actually getting the information to the hands of the humanitarian development practitioners who are making decisions all the time that either increase fire risk or have the potential to decrease it.

00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:53.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so we're looking at how we can get that information to them first and foremost.

00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:54.720
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's very interesting.

00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:56.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Can I pull you on that?

00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:59.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How do you curate the data for non-fire experts?

00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:05.119
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I mean, if I think about publishing science and research, I would like it to be raw.

00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:09.359
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I would like it to be literally uncurated, like just data, you know?

00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:25.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But I I can uh I can handle uh a thermocouple showing a thousand degrees Celsius and not fainting, while a person not familiar with with fire research, fire science, it's so hard to interpret the data when you are a seasoned fire engineer or fire scientist.

00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:32.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I can only imagine how confusing it must be if you've if if it's the first big data set you see in your life.

00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:34.160
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You said you want to get it in the hands of those people.

00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:36.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Do you intend to curate the data?

00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:40.319
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Do you do you intend to create like ways for them to to interpret it?

00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:40.720
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I wonder.

00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:45.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, so there's a lot of different audiences for this research.

00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:55.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so we need to come up with strategies and how to get information to the hands of those different audiences, which means, of course, we want to do all of what you're saying for the fire engineers and the fire scientists.

00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>We want to give the raw data raw data.

00:19:57.519 --> 00:19:57.759
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay.

00:19:58.160 --> 00:19:59.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, throw it out there.

00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:08.160
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um We want to be able to share like much more analytical view of things where we're talking about some of the complexities in a more scientific way.

00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:17.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>But while we do that, we still do even pay attention in those reports of how would someone enter into this more advanced report if they had no background.

00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:25.680
<v Danielle Antonellis>So sometimes we'll even have a section of report where we're talking about some of the basics, talking about measurement in a way that, you know, you would never need to read.

00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:37.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>But at least if there was someone who was quite a maybe technical humanitarian development practitioner, maybe they're an engineer but not a fire engineer, that maybe those became an entry point for them to start to understand.

00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:39.680
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, but obviously that's not the majority, right?

00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:45.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>The majority are people who are never going to read the 135-page technical reports.

00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:54.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>These are the people who, you know, might have even quite a low attention span because they are responding to very complex crises all over the world, right?

00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:58.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>So they don't have the time, even if they wanted to, really absorb all that.

00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:06.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>So on the other extreme side is trying to figure out how you can create short videos and things that get some of the core messages across.

00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:14.160
<v Danielle Antonellis>And maybe they don't need to understand the data, but they do need to know what the data is saying and why they should pay attention to.

00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:25.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's different steps in between those extremes, you know, the people who want all the data and the people who really don't care or don't have the luxury of finding out, but they're like, what does this tell me and how I change what I do every day?

00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:31.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's a lot of translation for us to figure out, okay, how does this impact decision making, or how could it impact decision making?

00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:35.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>And how do we make that information as accessible as possible?

00:21:35.119 --> 00:21:39.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>But we really do want to make fire science.

00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:51.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>And we really do want to kind of democratize information and data that's often stays in academic spaces and bring it into spaces with humanitarian development practitioners and even with communities, right?

00:21:51.200 --> 00:22:04.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>And actually, that's probably one of my favorite things about our work is trying to figure out how do you get people who have maybe never been exposed to these concepts to start to actually internalize them and bring them into their daily lives.

00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:06.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>Film is a big thing for us.

00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:11.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>Uh, we've been working with an amazing filmmaker, Justin Sullivan, over the past year and a half.

00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:15.839
<v Danielle Antonellis>And we released the first five on the on the website, but more is to come.

00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:32.319
<v Danielle Antonellis>And, you know, look, we're trying to figure out social media uh for different audiences, but a lot of it is actually just engaging directly with people and understanding what decisions are they making, how can we influence them and then responding to that to make guidance or tools directly for them, which is an ongoing problem.

00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:41.759
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And an another end of the spectrum is to create an unwanted feedback because I I can also imagine someone taking twists of the data and showing, like, oh, it's all horrible.

00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:54.319
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You need to install fireball in those shelters, or or uh you have to ban, I don't know, bamboo uh or or touch uh structures, or you have to use this magical spray to fire retard your touch, then it's gonna be great, you know.

00:22:54.319 --> 00:23:04.160
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's like I understand that uh how someone abuses your data set is not your fault, but it's also about making it kind of you know, uh full safe.

00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:07.039
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So it's it's not really that easy to twist it that much, right?

00:23:07.279 --> 00:23:10.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, which isn't easy when you're trying to be radically open.

00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:11.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah.

00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:19.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, you know, the data will be available, and if people want to go in, they'll be able to access it and try to create whatever story they want.

00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:35.839
<v Danielle Antonellis>You know, there's a lot of disclaimers, a lot of caveats that we try to put into our work, but a lot of it is also just about educating residents, practitioners about what good looks like or what kind of due diligence needs to be had before they start to accept these solutions.

00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:36.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>This is a long road.

00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:38.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>Okay, this is not gonna happen quickly.

00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:44.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>But, you know, for example, in here in Cape Town, South Africa, there's always the next trick.

00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:52.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's always the next thing that's like, okay, you put this on the house, or if you do this, it's gonna be the thing that fixes the fire and informal settlements problem, right?

00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:54.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um it frustrates me to no end.

00:23:54.799 --> 00:24:01.680
<v Danielle Antonellis>And there's absolutely a risk that they could take our data and try to tell a story that we don't want them to be telling with it.

00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:12.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>But that's also why we engage with governments and other actors to say these are the things that you need to be thinking about, making sure that they're learning so that they can have a critical eye when these things come up.

00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:15.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>So it's it's not a quick solution with any of this.

00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:25.200
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I mean, it's an interesting conversation because myself as a researcher, when I do research projects in within my institution, I don't really care about that that much, you know.

00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:36.319
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I don't find it to be my responsibility, I don't find it to be my obligation, and I I have high trust in the society that it will kind of get rid of those comments.

00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:44.880
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But I have my uh construction product regulations, if you are in the European Union, how much I can uh how much I hate it doesn't matter.

00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:45.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It works.

00:24:45.920 --> 00:25:10.960
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You know, C marking works, standardization works, uh all those things work, and I assume you don't have those things in the places you want to make an impact, uh, because the value, the costs associated with this level of standardization is probably way, way, way beyond your alarm and and uh a safety as a moving target, which which you which you used the phrase previously, right?

00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:16.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, I mean I think there's two conversations that you're opening up for me that are really important.

00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:23.839
<v Danielle Antonellis>One is about unintended consequences, and the other is about the failure of regulatory systems to reach the most vulnerable.

00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:25.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>I don't know which one you want.

00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:26.319
<v Danielle Antonellis>Choose your own adventure, mate.

00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:30.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Choose your uh, do you pick option A or option B?

00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:32.880
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Let's go, let's pick on government.

00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:36.240
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh the failure of regulatory systems in in the places where people need them.

00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:42.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, so I mean, regulatory systems are at their core about protecting people, about protecting society, right?

00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:47.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>Nothing in them discriminates about who should be protected and who shouldn't be protected.

00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:51.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>We have obviously very different regulatory systems around the world.

00:25:51.440 --> 00:26:00.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Sometimes um we have a more performance-based regulatory system, which says if you do these five things for fire safety, you'll be good.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>If you make sure people can evacuate, if you make sure fire doesn't spread, if you make sure, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:05.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>I love them.

00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:06.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>Those are great.

00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:16.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, you know, other times you have just a regulation that basically just refers to a code and says if you do these prescriptive things, then you're considered to be good.

00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:24.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>First of all, the performance base offers so much more flexibility for making sure that it covers more people and more parts of society.

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:28.160
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, so I'm a very big advocate for performance-based regulation.

00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:33.359
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, I'm sitting on the International Code Council Performance Code Committee.

00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:39.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're really reimagining what that looks like, uh, what performance codes look like, and rewriting the code itself.

00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:41.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>That's with Brian Meachum at the helm.

00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:46.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>And in that group, I'm leading a subcommittee on low resource settings.

00:26:46.880 --> 00:26:52.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, how can performance codes be useful for low resource settings?

00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:59.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>And, you know, we tend to think about the extreme, which is, you know, informal settlements in places like Cape Town.

00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:06.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we tend to think about refugee camps who are which are completely operating outside of regulatory systems normally.

00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:16.640
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, but it's also like rural towns in the US where they may not have access to the same resources, um, they may not have the same governance structures.

00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:21.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>So low resource settings is actually quite a big flexible term on purpose.

00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:30.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>And it's trying to address this core issue, which is that even though regulatory systems are meant to be for everybody, we know in practice they're not.

00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:36.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>In practice, if you can't meet the code, there's nothing that is there for you below that, right?

00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:38.319
<v Danielle Antonellis>You either meet it or you don't.

00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:40.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>You're either formally regulated or you're not.

00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:59.200
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, you know, we can talk about a whole bunch of other issues which came up through our work in the invisible US fire problem, where we looked at the regulatory system and said, actually, there's multiple levels where you have completely unregulated, which is the extreme, or you have kind of under-regulated, uh, which includes like under maintained buildings, for example.

00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:04.160
<v Danielle Antonellis>You have different levels through to kind of protecting everybody.

00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:15.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>But ultimately, there's a real failure in governments to protect everyone because we just rely on this binary system of you're either in the system with codes or you're out of the system.

00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:32.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's been some great work by the World Bank looking at building regulations for resilience and how you can make regulatory systems accessible and actually focus on bringing everybody up with the system, but we can't rely on just the more traditional methods.

00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:34.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>We need to think differently about this problem.

00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:38.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, I mean, at the core, this is what kindling's about.

00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:43.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>Kindling's about how do we help vulnerable communities where regulatory systems fail.

00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:55.759
<v Danielle Antonellis>They either fail because they're not fit for purpose or enforcement is challenging, but we tend to flip it around and look at the buildings or the people who aren't complying as the problem.

00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:56.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>I don't agree.

00:28:56.880 --> 00:28:59.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think the problem is the regulatory system itself.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:00.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Well, yeah.

00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:09.119
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I often say that that you know, uh fulfilling a clause of the code doesn't necessarily make your building safe, it makes it compliant.

00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:19.759
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like safety is is defined elsewhere, it's defined by the physics, by the properties, by by the way how it was built, by the quality of maintenance, by the administration.

00:29:19.759 --> 00:29:27.279
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>There's so so so so many layers for that thing to do safety and ticking a clause of the code just made it legal.

00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:29.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That that's the that's the thing that you ticked.

00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:38.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like if you have a compliance system or regulatory system, it's about making stuff legal and prevent that that's why it's binary.

00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:43.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's why you're either compliant or not, because you're either legal or illegal, which is not very helpful.

00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:51.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, Gerbal Rain always says that in one other situation is like the industry standard, which is compliance.

00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:52.480
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah.

00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:58.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>Like what happens when you just go a little bit below the industry standard and you could end up in jail killing people.

00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:01.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>Oh, I mean, people could die, like you're saying, one way or the other.

00:30:01.599 --> 00:30:04.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Safety isn't necessarily fitting this.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:10.640
<v Danielle Antonellis>But he always talks about how um, you know, if you're just a little bit below industry standard, it's illegal.

00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:13.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>So why are we setting industry standard at compliance?

00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:18.240
<v Danielle Antonellis>Why aren't we thinking about what safety actually is and how we can push that?

00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:24.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, well, it's obviously a very challenging discussion uh uh in the whole world.

00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:30.799
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's not just uh the uh low uh low uh resource settlings that would have uh issue with that.

00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:32.720
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I would say is it's a general problem.

00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:43.039
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And also, you know, uh if we are doing too good job with fire safety, those uh levels are getting wiggled and moved a little bit, and eventually we end up with a catastrophe.

00:30:43.039 --> 00:30:46.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So it's also like uh you know a time problem.

00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:54.640
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Or in one hand it has diminishing returns, so the more you put, the less safety, whatever you define it get you get.

00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:59.200
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But on the other hand, it also can erode uh with the time, right?

00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:01.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Oh, that that that's a banger.

00:31:01.519 --> 00:31:03.680
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And the the technology changes so much.

00:31:03.680 --> 00:31:12.160
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like in five years, in my world of building fires, I've seen so much change with the the batteries and and timber primarily.

00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:14.160
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But I guess batteries are interesting.

00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:18.960
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Do you have a battery problem in formal settlements right now, which you didn't have in 2020?

00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:20.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>Absolutely.

00:31:20.079 --> 00:31:23.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, you know, do we have something that's traceable in the data?

00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:25.680
<v Danielle Antonellis>No, we don't have that level of data.

00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:28.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>But do we have more devices in communities?

00:31:28.559 --> 00:31:32.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>Do we have devices that are not certified, not regulated?

00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:33.279
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah.

00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:50.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>You know, the problems we talk about all over the place of you know, make sure you have appropriately certified products, the biggest challenge is in the places that we work where people can't necessarily afford the best products and they're buying things secondhand, and there's huge issues with those batteries.

00:31:50.400 --> 00:32:08.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, I think uh one of the places if I uh sorry to give you advice, uh one idea that is very strong in my head is that currently in Europe we we go through a lot of batteries, you know, and those batteries will approach their end of life in here and and they will go somewhere.

00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:22.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And my real worry is that they will go literally your way because if there's money to be made on you know repurposing uh used batteries and sell them somewhere for a fraction of the price, someone will make that money.

00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:31.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's why I'm really supporting actions like the battery passport, so we trace the battery so so they don't get out of the system accidentally.

00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:43.279
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And and I think to solve the problems that will be coming to the world of low resource settlings, we have to act at high-resource settlings, which will be generating those items.

00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:45.279
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's a huge worry for me.

00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:58.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>You're you're touching on this idea of like trickle-down issues, and Rigita Meterschmitt from NFPA always talks about trickle-down fire safety and how it doesn't work, and that's a whole nother episode in itself that we could have.

00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:06.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>But I think what we're talking about now is like this idea that actually we have problems trickling from one place to another, right?

00:33:06.799 --> 00:33:17.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>We tend to like to frame things as you know, Western countries provide aid and supports to African countries, or the global north helps the global south.

00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:20.799
<v Danielle Antonellis>I don't like these narratives, by the way, terminology, even.

00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:29.359
<v Danielle Antonellis>But actually, a lot of times the these areas are much worse off because of the influence of of other countries.

00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:37.759
<v Danielle Antonellis>The waste system is very much managed in Africa and Asia for a lot of a lot of European countries, for example.

00:33:37.759 --> 00:33:44.720
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, yeah, that that globalization can't be just like it can't be ignored, right?

00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:49.839
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, even if you just talk about this, it's kind of outside of the same conversation, but it's an important point in globalization.

00:33:49.839 --> 00:34:07.839
<v Danielle Antonellis>If you look at, you know, what's happening in Pakistan and Bangladesh with the garment sectors and fast fashion and how we have such massive production of clothing, you know, who made the shirt I'm wearing, I don't know, but it could have been someone that I met in a factory in Pakistan.

00:34:07.839 --> 00:34:19.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>And when I go through that factory and I do an inspection and see the conditions and what um, again, where that regulatory system is failing those people, we can't think of that as just a Pakistan problem.

00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:21.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>It's a global supply chain problem.

00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:29.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um so waste and global supply chains are very, very critical when thinking about how fire safety reaches everybody.

00:34:29.519 --> 00:34:34.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>And fire safety for all isn't just about fire safety for everyone in their home.

00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:40.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>It's about fire safety in your workplace, fire safety on your commutes, fire safety in general, right?

00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:42.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so we need to think about it in a much wider lens.

00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:50.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, for me, the like the aha realization was that wow why would we like to utilize the batteries?

00:34:50.079 --> 00:35:02.639
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Because for the gain in energy they give, they're too perhaps unsafe to use for us, you know, and we have everything in place to protect us from the consequences of those fires.

00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:04.719
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And those are not acceptable for us.

00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:14.719
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And the solution is to send them to someone who doesn't even have a fraction of you know systems in place and then assume that that's gonna be fine for them.

00:35:14.719 --> 00:35:17.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Jesus Christ, that's that's such a horrible concept.

00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:19.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>And there's such a lack of awareness.

00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:29.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we're working with a community in Cape Town in a place called Kyoliche, um BM Section A Kilecha, for anyone on the call or joining who knows Cape Town.

00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:34.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>And when we started talking about battery fires with them, they were completely shocked.

00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:38.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>They had no idea that a battery could start a fire.

00:35:38.159 --> 00:35:45.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so I remember during our fire school, we had 15 residents and we played videos of battery fires just from phones and things.

00:35:45.119 --> 00:35:46.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>And like their jaws are on the floor.

00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:49.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>A fire can start from a battery.

00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:50.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>This is crazy.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:59.760
<v Danielle Antonellis>So there's just a complete lack of understanding that a battery can pose a risk in the first place, let alone the particular risks that we see with the current battery.

00:35:59.760 --> 00:36:06.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>We just created a a small video, an educational video on battery safety for some of the communities we're working with.

00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:24.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>And the other thing is that the messaging we use in the US, for example, we can't always just take it and apply directly into Cape Town, into the informal settlements, because you know, yes, we would prefer them to use certified products, but what does certification even mean?

00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:27.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>And is that even realistic for them?

00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:38.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we have to focus a lot more on signs that their battery might be damaged or aging to a point where they need to replace it and good practices around charging.

00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:43.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, the FSRI's campaign around take charge for battery safety has been really helpful.

00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:48.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>NFPA obviously has good resources, but there's a lot of adaptation that we need to do to make that relevant.

00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:53.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And energy generation, like uh are PV panels popping up in those uh settlements every now and then?

00:36:53.599 --> 00:36:59.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>Or yeah, I mean, in the places we're working now, we haven't seen so many, but over the years, definitely we've seen them.

00:36:59.199 --> 00:37:10.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um in India, I worked with an organization for a while that was selling PV, small, very small PV panels to charge solar lights.

00:37:10.079 --> 00:37:15.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>And you know, fire safety wasn't a big part of their their focus.

00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:23.760
<v Danielle Antonellis>They were more focused on interior kind of breathing, like basically what the air quality issues were related to paracetapes and things.

00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:27.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so I came to them and I was like, actually, you have fire safety issues here.

00:37:27.199 --> 00:37:34.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>On one side, you're doing something great, you're removing candles and lamps and reducing emission sources by having a battery-powered lamp.

00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:36.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>On the other side, you're charging a Phoebe panel.

00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:37.760
<v Danielle Antonellis>What does that mean?

00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:38.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>Right.

00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:44.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>So it's it's a really important point that is not part of these conversations at all right now.

00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:45.679
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay, learning.

00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:46.320
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Let's go.

00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:48.320
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How did this aspect change?

00:37:48.320 --> 00:37:56.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Because we've already touched a lot of how you talk with the communities, but uh you you said you've merged the education and training into learning.

00:37:56.079 --> 00:38:03.119
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Let's perhaps discuss like what why you think this shift in nomenclature is was necessary for your um definition of your mission.

00:38:03.119 --> 00:38:05.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I guess to go down to four again.

00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:05.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah.

00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:11.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we have really focused on what the difference between education and learning even is.

00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:15.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>So learning is an outcome, education is a process.

00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:20.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're very focused on what is learning, what are the different ways that people learn.

00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:26.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>Obviously, there are times that formal education can contribute to learning, but there's a lot of informal ways that people learn.

00:38:26.639 --> 00:38:39.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so it's really just acknowledging that more emergent nature of learning and trying to find creative ways to encourage learning in general and not just focus on very formal, top-down ways of teaching and training.

00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:53.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And uh in terms of going with this knowledge you got into the communities, it is this the only thing you do, or you also like give those people like basics of fire science, fire engineering.

00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:58.800
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like I know you you teach them about triangle of combustion and layers of safety or stuff like that, or yeah.

00:38:59.199 --> 00:38:59.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>Absolutely.

00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:03.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>So I think to answer that question, I need to talk about practice a little bit.

00:39:03.199 --> 00:39:05.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>So I hope it's okay if you're supposed to go.

00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:06.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>Okay.

00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:12.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we do fire risk assessments and fire risk reduction projects in communities.

00:39:12.159 --> 00:39:17.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we've had a pretty large pilot over the past year and a half in that community I just mentioned.

00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:34.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>And one thing that was a big, big challenge with the team of social scientists and engineers debating on how to make this project happen was do you go in saying this is what you need to know and how to think about it, which is the kind of classic engineering approach of like this is everything, right?

00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:37.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>Or do you go in and just ask questions?

00:39:37.280 --> 00:39:39.760
<v Danielle Antonellis>Do you go in to say, how do you understand things?

00:39:39.760 --> 00:39:41.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>What are the risks in your community?

00:39:41.280 --> 00:39:43.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>And the social scientists won that battle.

00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:45.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>I think it was by far the right thing.

00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:50.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, so one of my favorite compliments Kindling has ever received is kind of a weird one.

00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:53.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>And someone said, you know, they're really different.

00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:56.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>They came into the community with blank pieces of paper and pens.

00:39:56.639 --> 00:39:59.760
<v Danielle Antonellis>They didn't give us a manual, they didn't show us what we should or shouldn't be doing.

00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:01.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>They just came and listened.

00:40:01.920 --> 00:40:05.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>And that's really different than how most organizations work, right?

00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:12.719
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we spent the time to really understand what fire was from the perspective of the residents.

00:40:12.719 --> 00:40:17.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>What were their experiences, challenges, what knowledge do they have, what were they struggling with?

00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:24.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>And that built up a understanding collectively of what the fire problem was.

00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:33.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>Then once we had a clear understanding of the fire problem, then we were able to start introducing key information and knowledge, like the fire triangle.

00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:40.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we're not gonna be on video, but if I do this, which looks very similar, um if I will not describe this, yeah.

00:40:40.320 --> 00:40:45.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's no way I'm not gonna anyone in the community you work with, they know exactly what I'm doing.

00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:49.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>And that means that flames come out of openings and compartment fires.

00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:50.159
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay.

00:40:50.159 --> 00:40:51.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I don't know.

00:40:51.519 --> 00:40:55.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay, that's that that's a reasonable uh explanation, but I'm still not doing it.

00:40:56.159 --> 00:40:59.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um if I do this, they know Okay, there's a triangle.

00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:01.760
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's that I can describe making a triangle.

00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:02.159
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah.

00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:08.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um because the fire triangle is such a helpful tool to talk about fire prevention, fire response.

00:41:08.239 --> 00:41:16.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>So absolutely, these things are very much uh our focus in trying to make sure that people understand these concepts and how they can apply the concepts.

00:41:16.960 --> 00:41:20.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, but it's not something where we come in and just immediately tell.

00:41:20.239 --> 00:41:25.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>We're really listening, understanding, collectively, building an understanding together.

00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:28.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we hire community-based researchers.

00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:32.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>We actually hire people from the community to become researchers with us throughout this work.

00:41:32.639 --> 00:41:34.719
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so it's a very collaborative process.

00:41:35.199 --> 00:41:42.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I I like it because it kind of fits my definition of fire safety engineering, which is applying global knowledge to solve your local fire problems.

00:41:42.559 --> 00:41:55.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So it's not about, you know, telling people what kind of fire resistance class you have to have in your building to be safe, it's about figuring out what's the problem and finding out the fire safe way to go around the problem.

00:41:55.599 --> 00:42:01.840
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Um, how big of this learning is guided towards responders?

00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:04.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How much uh do you work with fire?

00:42:04.079 --> 00:42:06.239
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You must work with fire responders, right?

00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:08.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like fire, like okay.

00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:11.039
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>The first question is does does even fire fire service exist?

00:42:11.119 --> 00:42:13.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>Like, well, who is a fire responder is my first question.

00:42:14.239 --> 00:42:15.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Perhaps everyone, right?

00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:16.800
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But uh yeah, everyone, yeah.

00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:25.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But that I mean, I think that's one of the most important things that actually I would narrow it down to professional fire responders, people whose job it is to attend those fires.

00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:29.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, so that very much depends on the place that we're working in, right?

00:42:29.039 --> 00:42:32.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>Some places simply don't have fire services.

00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:41.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we had a webinar last week on Northeast Nigeria, and for some of those refugee camps or actually internally displaced persons' camps, the fire services are 100 kilometers away.

00:42:41.840 --> 00:42:42.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>Okay.

00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:48.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>So yeah, we can imagine what type of impact they can have by the time they get there.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:55.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>So there is definitely an opportunity in places where the fire services are local in Cape Town.

00:42:55.920 --> 00:42:59.679
<v Danielle Antonellis>You know, they're often responding in seven, 10 minutes to the communities we're working in.

00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:03.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>So there's a huge role that they play in fire response.

00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:06.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, but there's a lot of challenges that emerge.

00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:13.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so, you know, there's a lot of tension that often exists between firefighters and residents in these responses.

00:43:13.039 --> 00:43:18.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's a lack of information on who to call and how to call them, right?

00:43:18.480 --> 00:43:26.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>So people might know, okay, we want the firefighters to come, but they may call a phone number that is not gonna get them there very quickly.

00:43:26.639 --> 00:43:38.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>So there's a toll-free number in South Africa that's the national number, and it can route the call to Johannesburg and then take quite a long time to get to the right department in Cape Town.

00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:44.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's a number in Cape Town, and I'm gonna say the number in case someone on the call is in Cape Town, okay?

00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:50.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, there's a number that we really promote in Cape Town, it's 021-480-7700.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:55.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>I won't sing the song that the community made up on that number to help them remember it.

00:43:55.360 --> 00:44:08.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>But even just getting the right number into Great Ant is actually so critical because when they call that other number and it takes a half hour for the fire services to arrive or longer, that builds a lot of frustration.

00:44:08.239 --> 00:44:15.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>And then the fire services arrive, they don't have the hydr infrastructure often to be able to use the water infrastructure.

00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:17.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>So they end up having to bring their own trucks.

00:44:17.360 --> 00:44:22.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>Sometimes the water truck comes after some of the fire trucks that don't have the resources.

00:44:22.400 --> 00:44:30.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>So then residents see them standing there, not working as fast as they would expect them to because the infrastructure is not there for them.

00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:37.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's a lot of kind of layers of frustration that builds, and residents don't understand the reality that firefighters are going through.

00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:45.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>Even just when you arrive on a serious scene, the the initial work is actually just trying to understand the scene and come up with tactics on what are you going to do.

00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:49.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's not a lot of understanding on the community side on that process.

00:44:49.920 --> 00:44:55.039
<v Danielle Antonellis>They just don't see, they just see firefighters that aren't putting water on the fire and they get very frustrated.

00:44:55.039 --> 00:45:15.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>So a lot of our focus on working with the fire services is trying to build relationships between residents and firefighters, which means doing educational videos of the fire services about the right numbers to call, the process, what actually happens behind the scenes, the firefighters to get on scene and to be able to respond effectively.

00:45:15.199 --> 00:45:18.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>How can residents actually help that process?

00:45:18.079 --> 00:45:20.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>How can we build collaborative ways of working?

00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:29.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we're hoping in the next year to do kind of conflict resolution sessions between firefighters and residents because there's also a lot of trauma that exists.

00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:32.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, when I say tension, I this isn't abstract.

00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:36.480
<v Danielle Antonellis>Like firefighters get rocks thrown at them and fire trucks burned.

00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:40.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, there's some serious violence that happens against firefighters.

00:45:40.639 --> 00:45:46.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Hoses often get cut because people think if they put the water on their house, it will protect their house.

00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:49.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>So even if their house isn't where the firefront is, they'll they'll take the water there.

00:45:49.840 --> 00:46:13.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so the hope is that we'll be able to really understand these decisions that are being made and the perceptions and come up with strategies for communities to be collaborative first responders with firefighters and to really help firefighters understand the social dynamics that they're walking into and help them upskill to be able to enter that spaces safely.

00:46:13.599 --> 00:46:30.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I I would refer listeners to uh an episode with Richard Wallace, which I'll link in the show notes, because with Richard, like he went in depth on that, exactly on that aspect of uh working with with the fire brigade and and and in general the situation uh down in Cape Town.

00:46:30.400 --> 00:46:32.480
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh you said uh Cape Town is special.

00:46:32.480 --> 00:46:33.760
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Why it's so special for you?

00:46:34.079 --> 00:46:35.440
<v Danielle Antonellis>So it is special.

00:46:35.440 --> 00:46:42.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, not only is it one of the most beautiful places on the earth, but it's special from a fire safety perspective because the fire problem is very well acknowledged here.

00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:48.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>And a lot of other parts of the world, even informal settlements themselves, aren't well acknowledged.

00:46:48.559 --> 00:46:49.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>It's a very political thing, right?

00:46:49.920 --> 00:47:01.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>If you go to Dhaka Bangladesh, where we've done some of our research, everyone's talking about in government, everyone's talking about how the solution to the slums, as they call them, is to get rid of them, right?

00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:06.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's no acknowledgement that they're there to say, that they're part of the fabric of that city.

00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:10.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>And in Cape Town, there's a very strong acknowledgement.

00:47:10.239 --> 00:47:13.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>You know, certainly South Africa has a very progressive constitution.

00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:21.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>After the apartheid ended in 1994, the constitution said that every person should have rights to a house and to service delivery.

00:47:21.519 --> 00:47:36.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>We could tell a whole long story that I'll skip, but basically, the footnotes or the kind of short notes are that the housing delivery was incredibly uh ambitious and actually successful to some level.

00:47:36.079 --> 00:47:44.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's been huge amounts of houses built in Cape Town and South Africa at large, but never enough to accommodate everybody, of course.

00:47:44.880 --> 00:47:50.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>And the informal settlements are growing and there's a lot of migration into cities.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:59.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so, because of this governance failure, there's acknowledgement that the informal settlements are here to stay because the housing problem isn't going to be solved anytime soon.

00:47:59.599 --> 00:48:13.199
<v Danielle Antonellis>And therefore, with that acknowledgement that the informal settlements are here to stay, there comes acknowledgement that the government has responsibility to deliver services, whether that's electricity, water, sanitation, or fire services response.

00:48:13.199 --> 00:48:20.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>That acknowledgement means that there's a system ready to engage around what can be done for fire safety.

00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:21.760
<v Danielle Antonellis>That's quite special.

00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:24.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>I'm not saying there's nowhere else in the world, but that is quite special.

00:48:24.639 --> 00:48:27.679
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's also just been a huge amount of investments.

00:48:27.679 --> 00:48:35.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, there's social scientists, engineers, other researchers that have been studying the fire problem in Cape Town.

00:48:35.119 --> 00:48:37.920
<v Danielle Antonellis>There's better data systems than we have in most other places.

00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:47.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>I mean, you can't talk about Cape Town and Formal Settlement Fire in the fire engineering community without talking about David Rush from University of Edinburgh and Richard Walls from Salambosch University and the incredible work they've done.

00:48:47.119 --> 00:48:52.559
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so we're we're standing on their shoulders and working with them directly as well, of course.

00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:58.320
<v Danielle Antonellis>But it's also about just how Cape Town is primes to figure out what is possible.

00:48:58.320 --> 00:49:05.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>Doesn't mean that what we do here will directly transfer to other places, but it's a it's a place to really push boundaries and see what's possible.

00:49:05.920 --> 00:49:13.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I I guess they're kind of pushing on the definition of informal settlement because if it becomes acknowledged, like is it informal at this at this point?

00:49:13.599 --> 00:49:16.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like it's kind of interesting dynamic.

00:49:16.079 --> 00:49:22.239
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Um we're running out of time, and let's have a few minutes on pilot projects and then perhaps wrap it up.

00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:24.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>So pilot projects are now practice.

00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:37.360
<v Danielle Antonellis>I've already mentioned a few things, but I think what we really need to focus on is how do we actually make tools and resources available to practitioners so that they can make better decisions and really do fire safety programming well.

00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:42.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>And we can't do that unless Kindling gets its hands dirty and actually gets in there and figures out what it means to be a practitioner.

00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:46.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>I'm a fire engineer, I'm a practitioner by background, so I love this part.

00:49:46.960 --> 00:49:50.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>This is my favorite pillar if I was going to be biased towards one.

00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:54.719
<v Danielle Antonellis>So that means that we're in communities actually doing the work.

00:49:54.719 --> 00:50:05.519
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, in that community, I keep mentioning Kylicha, um, we've spent a year and a half with them going through the identification of fire risk factors, you know, hazards and vulnerabilities.

00:50:05.519 --> 00:50:11.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>We then developed problem statements and solutions that can respond to those problem statements.

00:50:11.840 --> 00:50:16.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>And now we've been doing implementation with them as well as trying to refine strategies.

00:50:16.159 --> 00:50:19.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, I mean, practice might not always be glamorous.

00:50:19.280 --> 00:50:34.719
<v Danielle Antonellis>Practice for us meant that for three days in June, we picked up trash with babies and nappies because that trash was next to the community in this large open field where vegetation and illegal waste dumping often led to fire spread into their community.

00:50:34.719 --> 00:50:36.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>So we picked up nappies.

00:50:36.400 --> 00:50:39.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, and we're looking at how that land can be better managed.

00:50:39.280 --> 00:50:56.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>Practice sometimes is looking at how we can really engage with government and other practitioners around policy and trying to influence the ways that people respond, not only to the fires, but to the disaster that is created by the fire.

00:50:56.639 --> 00:50:58.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>So thinking about relief and recovery.

00:50:58.400 --> 00:51:18.239
<v Danielle Antonellis>In Cape Town, we have something called the Cape Town Community of Practice on Fire Safety and Informal Settlements, which is a space that brings together governments, NGOs, academics, residents, and private industry on a quarterly basis to talk about the kind of current practice and how practice can be improved, again, from policy perspective as well.

00:51:18.239 --> 00:51:21.599
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um so it does link into advocacy quite strongly.

00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:28.800
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, we also have a global community of practice on focus on the humanitarian sector through the global shelter cluster.

00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:38.159
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so that is similarly looking at um how there can be kind of learning and sharing of practical ways to improve fire safety across different actors.

00:51:38.159 --> 00:51:48.719
<v Danielle Antonellis>Um, so practice is where everything else converges, advocacy, learning, and research don't really matter unless they actually influence practice.

00:51:48.800 --> 00:51:49.679
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So fantastic.

00:51:49.679 --> 00:52:02.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, I I would love to pull pull more on that, but I guess we'll we'll meet again in in the podcast soon, uh where especially when we discuss the research in more details, and then we can talk about how that influences practice.

00:52:02.559 --> 00:52:05.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Let's wrap it up, uh Danielle.

00:52:05.199 --> 00:52:06.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Where where are you going?

00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:09.039
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>What's the next five years gonna look like for Kindling?

00:52:09.599 --> 00:52:25.119
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, so we're teaching we're expanding our learning, we're trying to figure out how advocacy can go from kind of ideas that influence actors to actually pushing the policies themselves and really trying to understand the governance system.

00:52:25.119 --> 00:52:30.960
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, for example, how can we get white papers that can directly go into policy here in South Africa?

00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:40.880
<v Danielle Antonellis>And practice is expanding not only in the number of communities we're working with here, but also in the global geographic reach.

00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:45.840
<v Danielle Antonellis>So, you know, five years ago or four years ago when we talked, we didn't have a theory of change.

00:52:45.840 --> 00:52:49.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>We just were, we were kind of, we had something called a discovery strategy.

00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:54.079
<v Danielle Antonellis>We were trying different things, trying to understand the problem, not really sure what worked and what didn't.

00:52:54.079 --> 00:52:58.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>Now we're at a place where we have a pretty strong opinion of what works and why it matters.

00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:01.280
<v Danielle Antonellis>And so this is the next five years is all about scale.

00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:04.400
<v Danielle Antonellis>First five years we're trying to figure out what what we should do.

00:53:04.400 --> 00:53:08.000
<v Danielle Antonellis>Now we know what we should do and how do we make it reach as many people as possible.

00:53:08.320 --> 00:53:08.880
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Fantastic.

00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:13.519
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I'm I hope uh that this goes on as you intend.

00:53:13.519 --> 00:53:18.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>There will be challenges, but uh there there will also be a lot of uh fun on the way.

00:53:18.079 --> 00:53:19.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I am looking forward.

00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:24.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh and we need to catch up, maybe not in five years, but definitely, uh definitely sooner.

00:53:24.559 --> 00:53:34.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I uh something tells me we will be having uh an opportunity to to discuss more in-depth research and and this and this practical uh aspect quite soon.

00:53:34.400 --> 00:53:36.000
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So looking forward to that.

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:39.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh Danielle, thank you so much for for coming to the fire science show.

00:53:39.440 --> 00:53:41.360
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh it's Christmas, Mark Christmas, everyone.

00:53:41.599 --> 00:53:42.639
<v Danielle Antonellis>Yeah, Merry Christmas.

00:53:42.639 --> 00:53:46.719
<v Danielle Antonellis>Thank you so much for the opportunity and looking forward to future chats.

00:53:46.960 --> 00:53:47.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And that's it.

00:53:47.599 --> 00:53:48.800
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thank you for listening.

00:53:48.800 --> 00:53:57.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'm always moved when I discuss these things with Danielle because indeed this is a fire problem that touches one billion people on this planet.

00:53:57.440 --> 00:54:08.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I don't think there's any other fire safety uh problem or case in which more people would be vulnerable to to the fire.

00:54:08.559 --> 00:54:15.920
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>We always tend to, you know, highlight the huge fires that happen in the West, however you define West.

00:54:15.920 --> 00:54:26.639
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But yeah, there were huge fires in informal settlements around Christmas, and you probably have not heard about them because it's not something uh widely covered by the media.

00:54:26.639 --> 00:54:42.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Anyway, I think uh given that again coming back to the episode 34, it's not that those societies have power or financial uh resources or or even urgency to fix those things for themselves.

00:54:42.559 --> 00:54:57.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I think the work of people like Danielle and Kinling is is highly important, and the fact that we have a lot of experienced fire safety engineers who can assist in in solving those issues when guided correctly, I think this is really, really great.

00:54:57.440 --> 00:55:03.760
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And uh I see a huge need to participate in those projects.

00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:05.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Actually, I I am participating.

00:55:05.199 --> 00:55:09.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I since the previous episode uh I've been talking with Daniel a lot.

00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:17.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>When they proposed the large experimental program, uh we were bidding for it, we were working with them on the experimental outline.

00:55:17.440 --> 00:55:31.679
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Now we're working together on the data analysis and uh processing the stuff that has been created in those 20 large-scale burns in uh South Africa, so it's useful for both scientists and non-governmental organizations.

00:55:31.679 --> 00:55:38.320
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, yeah, that's the future podcast episode that we will definitely have about the outcomes of those experiments.

00:55:38.320 --> 00:55:46.239
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But I I feel there's a big need to contribute and everyone to their own, everyone can contribute in one way or another.

00:55:46.239 --> 00:55:50.239
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, one more thing, Kindling has uh went through some sort of rebranding.

00:55:50.239 --> 00:55:59.760
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, like they have a new website, it's packed with information, packed with resources, and I have a feeling they will implement more and more into that new website.

00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:19.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So definitely you will uh be able to check a lot more information on the practical information, practical guidance on providing fire safety to uh low risk settlings uh across the world if you ever find yourself in a position where you can actually contribute to the fire safety of those uh spaces.

00:56:19.599 --> 00:56:22.239
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Um I hope this was an interesting episode for you.

00:56:22.239 --> 00:56:23.679
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It was clearly for me.

00:56:23.679 --> 00:56:37.440
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>We will need to reconvene with with uh Danielle and Kin Link soon, and probably not after four years, definitely sooner, and you'll get more updates on how uh battling fire safety in this part of the world looks like.

00:56:37.440 --> 00:56:39.840
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That would be it uh for today.

00:56:39.840 --> 00:56:47.199
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I hope you enjoy your week and I hope that next week you come back to Fire Science Show for another Fire Science episode.

00:56:47.199 --> 00:56:48.559
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thank you for being here with me.

00:56:48.559 --> 00:56:49.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Cheers, bye.