ABSTRACT: The greatest discovery in human history? There is certainly within each of us an ingrained fascination with fire. From keeping our ancient relatives warm whilst preparing their first cooked meals, to the 19th century industrial revolution, our ability to start and manage fire has been crucial to human development. However, our history as fire starters and managers originates not just from a sense of curiosity and opportunity but also concern, wariness and fear of its destructive nature. In the modern world of risk prevention, fire safety engineers are heavily involved at the outset in the design of much of our built environment. And yet fire is an extremely complex phenomenon and there is still much to learn about how it ignites, spreads, produces smoke and can be suppressed. Guillermo Rein is a Professor of Fire Science at Imperial College London whose work involves the experimental and computational study of fires. In this lecture he will discuss a career reducing the worldwide burden of accidental fires and protecting people, their property, and the environment. He will also look to the largest fires of 2017 and discuss how Los Angeles and London both suffer the consequences of our collective inability to quantify and predict fire behavior.

BIOSKETCH: Guillermo is Professor of Fire Science at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Imperial College and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Fire Technology. He was born in Madrid (Spain) and studied Mechanical Engineering at University of California at Berkeley (MSc 2003, PhD 2005), and before than at ICAI Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Ingeniero Industrial, 1999). His research is centred on heat transfer, combustion and fire science. The purpose of his work is to reduce the worldwide burden of accidental fires and protect people, their property, and the environment.