Visibility in Fires 2026

Seminar on Visibility in Fire Safety Science and Engineering: Experimental Work, Modelling and Practical Applications

Overview

Visibility in fire induced smoke is a critical determinant of safe egress. When smoke reduces the visibility, especially of signage like emergency exit signs, occupants are at risk of becoming disoriented, increasing their exposure to toxic fire products and thermal hazards. Despite its importance in performance-based fire safety design, the physical mechanisms of smoke-light-interaction and how this translates into human perception are still subject to considerable uncertainty and therefore remain an active area of research.

This three-day workshop is intended to bring together fire safety researchers and engineers working on different aspects of visibility in fire. It covers the full chain from experimental investigation of soot formation and aerosol characterizations, light extinction measurements and CFD-based smoke transport prediction, to human observer studies and physically-grounded models for application in day-to-day engineering practice. 

The seminar features a programme of contributed talks. We welcome further talk abstract submissions from anyone working on related topics, as well as participants without a contribution.

Scope and Topics

The workshop addresses topics from experimental research, modelling and practical application:

• Investigation of soot formation, particle size distributions, and aerosol characterization
• Innovative approaches of light extinction measurement
• Numerical modelling of smoke transport via Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
• CFD post-processing in the context of performance-based design
• Modelling of pedestrian dynamics in smoke impaired environments
• Human observer studies on perceived visibility of signage in fire smoke
• Physically based rendering of smoke-impaired scenes
• Discussions about current practice, limitations, and paths toward more physically grounded visibility models

General Information

Confirmed Contributions

In alphabetical order:

Yuki Akizuki· University of Toyama
Application of Visual Environment Planning Methods in Architectural Environmental Engineering to Evacuation Behavior in Fires

Lukas Arnold · Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) / University of Wuppertal (BUW)
Spatio-temporal measurement of optical smoke properties in compartment fires

Kristian Börger · University of Wuppertal (BUW) / Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
Physically based Modelling of Evacuation Signage Visibility through Fire Smoke

Mohcine Chraibi · Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
A modular workflow for visibility-aware evacuation modelling

Jennifer Ellingham & Beth Weckman · University of Waterloo
Smoke Observation Studies: Lessons Learned / Smoke Layers, Visibility and the Radiance Method

Jason Floyd · Fire Research Institute (FSRI)
Soot measurements and modeling in a closed single-room compartment with a propylene fire

Christoph Gnendiger · University of Wuppertal (BUW) / Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
Extinction coefficients from aerosol measurements

Bjarne Husted · Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU)
Presentation title pending

Bryan Klein · Thunderhead Engineering
Calculating Occupant Visibility through Smoke in Pathfinder

Manuel Osburg · Brandschutz Consult Leipzig (BCL)
Multi-Sensor Light-Extinction Measurements for Fire Model Validation

Anna Troff · Brandschutz Consult Leipzig (BCL)
From Lab to Field: Applying LEDSmokeAnalysis to Smoke Experiments in Fire Safety Engineering 

Gabriele Vigne · JVVA
Practical Role of Visibility in Smoke Modeling in Everyday Fire Engineering

Jonathan Wahlqvist · Lund University
The importance of multiple scattering when modelling visibility

Wojciech Węgrzyński · ITB Warsaw
Reappraisal of the Jin's model for common building situations