InToxFIRE Dissemination Activities & Conference Engagements – June & July 2025

The final weeks of June and the first week of July 2025 were dedicated to promoting the InToxFIRE project and its upcoming online workshop among professionals in fire safety and rescue services, as well as academic and industry researchers. The project team actively participated in several high-profile events to disseminate findings, engage with the community, and foster collaboration. Highlights of these activities are outlined as follows.

• 5th International Fire Safety Symposium (IFireSS 2025)
• 16th International Conference and Exhibition on Fire Science and Engineering (Interflam 2025)
• London Blue Lights Show

All InToxFIRE team attended the 5^th International Fire Safety Symposium (IFireSS 2025), hosted in Ulster University, Belfast (United Kingdom) in June 25-27, 2025, and contributed to sharing the early findings of the project, disseminate its aim and objectives, and announce its upcoming online workshop.

• Prof. Ali Nadjai, as the organiser of the conference, had a pivotal role in bringing scientists, fire engineers, technical experts and researchers globally from 37 countries and providing decent opportunities for networking and idea sharing.
• Dr. Svetlana Tretsiakova McNally presented a keynote talk entitled “Anyone for cocktail? Understanding the impact of toxic chemicals on the exposure of firemen to a post fire condensate”, co-authored by Hamed Rasouli Sadabad, Jianping Zhang and Ali Nadjai. In a part of her presentation, she stated:  

“As the nature and mechanism of toxic chemicals ingress and movement through the firefighters’ gear ensembles are not fully understood, we have aimed in this on-going study to identify, with the aid of highly sensitive analytical techniques, the compounds detected in the post-fire condensate collected after burning a mixture of solid fuels found in a typical home.”

• Dr. Jianping Zhang benefitted the conference for promoting aims and objectives of intoxfire project among the conference attendees and to define its different work packages and upcoming events.
• Dr. Hamed Rasouli Sadabad hosted an independent promotional desk to engage attendees in discussions about InToxFIRE’s scope and its upcoming events specifically the upcoming online workshop along with networking in various sessions of the project. InToxFIRE workshop leaflets and project brochures were distributed on the desk and the project’s banner was located in various parts of the venue.  

All project members chaired various sessions of the conference and benefitted those platforms to disseminate the project and its findings, and highlight its funder, ULRI.

Dr. Svetlana Tretsiakova McNally presented the initial findings of the InToxFIRE project in 16^th International Conference and Exhibition on Fire Science and Engineering (Interflam 2025). Entitled “the nature of toxicants moving across the layers of fire suits” and co-authored by Yong Kai Chen, Hamed Rasouli Sadabad, Jianping Zhang and Ali Nadjai, her presentation well received and initiated valuable discussion among the panellists and participants of the Combustion and Toxicity session.

The conference was held in the Royal Holloway, University of London (United Kingdom) from 30^th June to 2^nd July 2025 and brought together engineers, scientists, practitioners and regulators from around the globe to hear the latest state of the art papers, meet with new colleagues and importantly, to network with their peers in a friendly atmosphere conducive to exchanging ideas.

Svetlana benefitted this opportunity for further discussion on the existing gaps in the current scientific and technical knowledge, standards, and regulations in terms of toxic chemicals which are generated during fire events as well as firefighter’s PPE’s capability to stop them from permeation.

Dr. Hamed Rasouli Sadabad attended London BlueLights show, held in 18-19 June in Olympia London (United Kingdom) to meet firefighters, fire engines, academic researchers, PPE manufacturers, rescue experts and other stakeholders in regard to fire and rescue services.

The significant part of the show was related to firefighters, and fire and rescue services in forms of exhibition, training events, and technical lectures followed by question-and-answer sessions. During the show Hamed engaged with various activities including attending various talks, visiting manufacturers and decontamination companies’ booths, and networking with firefighters as opportunities to introduce the project as well as discussions about PPE decontamination technologies.

In addition, the leaflets of InToxFIRE’s upcoming online workshop as well as the catalogue were distributed in physical form among the attendees.

Stay tuned for more updates on the InToxFire project and future developments in fire protection research.