Firefighter Podcast

High-rise firefighting has a problem we don’t talk about enough… getting water onto the fire floor fast enough when it really matters. From delayed internal attacks to compromised stairwells and unreliable rising mains, crews are often fighting to catch up with a fire that’s already developing ahead of them. And when the building height starts working against you, that gap only gets bigger. In thi...

Humour has always been part of emergency service culture. It builds connection, relieves pressure, and helps people process some of the most difficult situations imaginable. But in a modern environment shaped by increased scrutiny, policy, and public visibility, that same humour is now being questioned. Where is the line between coping and causing harm? And what do we risk losing if we get it wron...

 In this incident debrief, we break down the 2022 Twin Parks high-rise fire in the Bronx, where a single apartment fire escalated into a mass casualty event that claimed 17 lives, all due to smoke inhalation.  This episode explores how the failure of compartmentation, open doors, and an unprotected stairwell allowed smoke to spread rapidly throughout the building, turning a place of safety into a...

Phil is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Pre-Hospital Care, with over two decades of experience and a background that spans ambulance services, air ambulance, and national-level major incident response. He’s currently a Medical Director at South Western Ambulance Service and has provided expert evidence to major public inquiries including Manchester Arena and Bondi Junction. This episode is...

If you’re a firefighter and you’ve experienced a challenging incident, particularly involving search and rescue, you can take part by contacting Dr Catherine Thompson directly via email at thompsc1@hope.ac.uk The only requirement for participation is that a firefighter can remember the incident they choose to describe and that they were working as an operational firefighter during the incident. We...

In this episode I sit down with Blake Richardson, CEO of EaseAlert and the son of a 22 year firefighter to explore what may be one of the next frontiers in firefighter health and safety: how we alert crews to calls.  For generations the fire service has relied on loud bells, tones and lights to mobilise stations. It works, but it was designed to wake an entire building rather than the specific fir...

In this episode of the International Fire Instructors Workshop (IFIW) Australia mini series, Fire Chief Jason Caughey of the Laramie County Fire Authority explores one of the most debated topics in the modern fire service: the relationship between aggressive firefighting and firefighter safety.  With more than 30 years in emergency services and over two decades serving as a Fire Chief, Jason bring...

Beci Newton is a Station Manager in the UK Fire and Rescue Service and an experienced fire behaviour instructor as well as other disciplines joins me for a conversation about our past, our present and our future, and how we are evolving the identity of our profession. This episode is about more than neutral planes &compartment behaviour. It is about identity & about who we are as a profess...

In this episode of the IFIW Australia mini-series, James Mendoza, Captain and Training Officer with the San Jose Fire Department, takes us inside a major large volume fire at a Home Depot in 2022. With a background in education and microbiology, and experience contributing to UL’s Coordinated Fire Attack study, James blends science and street-level decision making as he unpacks the realities of op...

In this episode I sit down with my good friend John Gregory, one of the original trailblazers of the British Firefighter Challenge as we head into a challenge season that is bigger and more competitive than ever before.  John and I have shared the arena many times over the years, from Toughest Firefighter competitions to international search and rescue arduous conditions courses and HYROX events a...

In this episode recorded live at the International Fire Instructors Workshop 2026 in Australia, you’ll hear from Edward Hartin as he explores fireground sensemaking and decision making for the station officer. Drawing on more than fifty years in the fire service and decades at chief officer level, Ed takes us inside the cognitive process that underpins command. How initial cues shape your frame of...

London Fire Brigade protects one of the most complex urban environments on the planet. The resident population of London sits at around 9 million people, but that number is misleading. On a typical weekday, when commuters, tourists, and transient populations are added in, the number of people moving through the city regularly swells to 11 to 12 million, sometimes more during major events or peak t...

This mini series opens a door into the International Fire Instructors Workshop 2026 in Australia, a gathering that for nearly two decades has been built on closed room conversations, honest challenge and the exchange of experience between some of the most respected fire instructors in the world.  With the full support of the organisers and attendees, these recordings bring that environment into th...

In this episode, I sit down with Scott Butler , a serving UK firefighter who has quietly built a life around choosing difficult things on purpose. Scott shares the pivotal moment in 2006 when joining the fire service forced him to grow fast, take responsibility, and stop making excuses. That turning point shaped not just his career, but his identity, and set him on a path where challenge became a...

This short debrief episode examines the Bethnal Green Road fire of 20 July 2004 , a commercial premises fire in East London that resulted in the deaths of two London firefighters, Billy Faust and Adam Meere . Crews attended what initially presented as a working shop fire and committed under Breathing Apparatus into a basement environment characterised by heavy textile fuel loading, restricted acce...

I sit down with Chris Case , a firefighter who spent 25 years in Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service before making the leap to Canada and becoming Fire Chief of Chatham-Kent in Ontario. This is not a career-timeline conversation. It is a deep exploration of leadership, identity, and the personal cost of doing complex work in complex systems. We talk about moving beyond the cookie-cutter career, the...

On this episode of we take a slow, deliberate look at the Old Albert Mill incident in Whitworth, Lancashire, from 15 May 2009 . This is a structured incident debrief built directly from the original accident investigation report, with large sections read verbatim to preserve timings, context, and operational reality. The focus is not on blame or judgement, but on understanding how breathing appara...

In this episode, I’m joined by Chris Kirby , Chief Fire Officer of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and Chair of FireSport UK, to talk about why bringing sport back matters right now. We focus on the Festival of Fire Sport and how FireSport UK is using sport to reconnect firefighters through teamwork, competition, and shared experience, not just fitness for fitness’ sake. We explore how spo...

This episode is a grounded debrief from being boots on the ground at Intersec Dubai , not a second hand summary or a glossy highlight reel. Intersec matters because it shows where global investment, policy attention, and operational thinking are actually heading long before those ideas trickle into day to day firefighting. From advanced PPE and industrial scale suppression systems to drones design...

This episode kicks off a new series of conversations exploring the British Firefighter Challenge Series , a nationwide circuit made up of thirteen events running from April through to September 2026. From stair runs and regional challenges to the crown jewel event at Moreton-in-Marsh and an international 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb in the United States, the series represents a growing movement withi...

On November 13, 2019, a career lieutenant died, and four other firefighters were injured while fighting a residential structure fire. What began as a seemingly routine night-time call rapidly escalated into a complex, high-risk incident involving crews operating above the fire, deteriorating conditions, wind-impacted fire behaviour, and critical information gaps. Early reports of life risk shaped...

This episode is one of those conversations that quietly gets under your skin. I’m joined by Matt Akers , who currently serves in New Zealand, but whose journey through the fire service spans rural retained firefighting, aviation, London, and multiple countries. Matt’s lived and worked across very different systems, cultures, and tempos of the job, and that perspective runs all the way through this...

In this episode, we take a deep, no-nonsense operational debrief of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, November 2018, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire of the modern era in the United States. We walk through the incident as it unfolded, the early warning signs, the rapid fire growth, the evacuation failures, and the brutal reality that most of the devastation occurred within the firs...

In this episode, Pete Wakefield is joined by Las Fallon to explore one of the most extraordinary and misunderstood fires in European fire service history: the Great Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875. This was not simply a large urban fire. It was an incident where tens of thousands of gallons of high-proof whiskey escaped bonded warehouses, flowed through the streets of Dublin, ignited, and turned parts...

In this episode, we take a deep, minute-by-minute debrief of the Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island. A small ignition during a live music performance led to rapid smoke production, catastrophic loss of tenability, and the deaths of 100 people in less than six minutes. Drawing on investigation findings and eyewitness accounts, this episode focuses not on spectacle, but on how smok...