Smart Firefighting

Kevin sits down with Gamaliel Baer the Department Health and Wellness Coordinator for the Howard County Department of Fire & Rescue Services. They discuss health and wellness education in fire departments and what they are doing to help firefighters understand health risks. Gamaliel talks about the challenges he’s faced when trying to promote health education. Until recently firefighters didn’...

Kevin sits down with Stephen Kerber , Vice President of UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute. Together they discuss the role of UL in the fire industry, different research campaigns UL is involved in, benefits and limitations of technology, evolving fire standards, the challenges of training around the new NFPA 1403 training standards, the false sense of security technology sometimes creates,...

Kevin sits down with Paul Speight , Paul is the Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Watch Manager. Paul works with emerging technologies such as virtual reality and 360 photography. In this episode they discuss Immersive learning training using 360 videos, the environmental, cost, and health benefits of virtual training. They also dive into interactive photorealistic training for arson investigation, a...

Kevin sits down with Chief Dan Munsey to talk about technology and where it is leading us. Are we leading technology or following it? How is the next generation of firefighters using this technology? What can a departments leadership do to encourage sustainable technology adoption? All this and more on this episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast.

Kevin and Mike shake up their podcast format to bring you their personal experiences at CES , which includes deepfakes, 360 videos, drones, and more. They talk about recent news in the fire industry, including a partnership between Haas Alert and Pierce. They dive into what they are looking forward to this year and more on this episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast. To contact Kevin Sofen emai...

Kevin sits down with Joshua Pruitt of Drone Sense to talk about soft ware options for a departments drone program. They discuss Drone Sense and the features they provide to make maintaining a drone program easier. DroneSense is a comprehensive solution that empowers public safety organizations to build, manage, and scale its drone program. DroneSense have partnered with first responders from day o...

Kevin sits down with Brian Murray and Mark Scott of The Hickory Fire Department . They discuss how pre-incident planning has changed over the years from 3-ring binders and handwritten notes to modern computer programs that gather and store data. Brian and Mark talk about how user-friendly their programs have been and how invaluable they are to get the job done. They discuss the need for fire depar...

At FRI, Kevin had a chance to sit down with Bart van Leeuwen CEO of Netage B.V . In this episode, Kevin and Bart discuss data in the fire industry and using it in real-time. Bart believes that getting the right information to first responders is more important than giving all the information available. Bart describes the challenge of data management of first responders. The data is available, but...

At FRI, Kevin had a chance to sit down with Divy Shrivastava of Paladin Drones . In this episode, Kevin and Divy talk about the need for greater situational awareness for first responders and how Paladin Drones has a solution to answer that need. 70% of the time, first responders do not know an emergency's exact location. On top of that, they know almost no details about the situation until after...

At FRI, Kevin had a chance to sit down with Paige Day of E.M.I.L.Y Robot . In this episode, Kevin and Paige discuss water rescue and how drones designed to be used in water can save lives without putting first responders at risk. With much of the talk on Drones, often the water robotics get lost in translation. The EMILY water robot is being deployed across the world and bringing widespread value...

At FRI , Kevin had a chance to sit down with Douglas Baily of Levrum Data Technologies . In this episode, Kevin and Doug discuss data technology for first responders and how it is collected, stored, and used. Kevin asks the questions. How can we visualize data and turn it into action? How can first responders make better decisions during an incident? How can decision-makers be better informed on h...

At FRI Kevin had a chance to sit down with Jeff Powell of Autel Robotics . In this episode, Kevin and Jeff discuss the drone industry and the benefits Autel offers first responders. Autel Robotics is a US-headquartered drone manufacturer. They offer a wide range of platforms from fixed-wing, quadcopter, VTOL. They are dedicated to delivering ground-breaking solutions for new aerial exploration thr...

At FRI Kevin had a chance to sit down with Matt Sloan of SkyFire Consulting . They discuss the difference between owning a drone and owning a drone program. They also dive into what SkyFire does to help fire departments take their program to the next level; on this episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast. SkyFire Consulting is an organization that trains first responders in drone operation. They...

Kevin sits down with John Tippett of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation to talk about the history of the foundation, the 16 firefighter lifesaving initiatives, and innovations changing the fire services. The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation is an organization whose mission is to honor and remember America’s fallen fire heroes, to provide resources to assist their families in rebuil...

At FRI Kevin had a chance to sit down with Brett Skinner and Zach Braun of FireHUD to talk about their biotrac platform. FireHUD uses a passive system that monitors and collects physiological data from its users to track their biometric status. Firefighters exert themselves more than any other profession. Their physical and mental condition is critical to their success. BioTrac Platform collects t...

At FRI Kevin had a chance to sit down with Michael Varney of FirstNet . They discuss how data is changing the public safety industry and how FirstNet is helping push this evolution. The mission of FirstNet is to deploy, operate, maintain, and improve the first high-speed, nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to public safety.

The Responder X Live event in Chicago brought industry leaders from the public safety market together to see and interact with the technology of tomorrow. First-Due re-thinks pre-incident planning by collecting, analyzing, and formatting occupancy data. First Due is an application that brings critical fire service-related data to firefighters on their way to a call. The application connects online...

The Responder X Live event in Chicago brought industry leaders from the public safety market together to see and interact with the technology of tomorrow. Wi-Fiber is a network solutions company providing innovative and flexible products to strengthen a cities network infrastructure. Wi-Fiber creates decentralized wifi hubs for a city’s municipalities to connect. First responders rely on the netwo...

Kevin sits down with CEO of Responder Ventures Bryce Stritiron . They discuss Responder X Live, what attendees can expect to see, and what they hope to achieve at the event. Responder X Labs has teamed up with Amazon web services, W.S. Darley, Verizon, and other industry leaders to showcase the next generation of technology for the first responder industry. The event will allow public safety membe...

Chief Dan Munsey is Assistant Fire Chief of San Bernardino Fire Protection district, the California Fire Chiefs Association Operations section president, and part of the IAFC technology council. Dan has decades of experience in the fire industry. He has seen the evolution of data in the fire industry and how much things have changed and haven’t changed over the years. Everyone in the fire industry...

Squishy Robotics is a company that designs robots from tensegrity structures. These robots are light-weight, low cost, and robust, capable of surviving large impacts while carrying a payload. Squishy Robotics hopes their shape-shifting robots will inspire researchers and push the boundaries of our technological advancement. Squishy Robotics was funded through a small business innovation research g...

Wi-fiber is a company that creates network solutions for municipalities. Their organization focuses on finding innovative solutions to create private networks. They excel at creating plug and play networks that can be connected with additional nodes. One impressive advantage is that the system doesn’t require additional fiber past the first node. At CES 2018 in Las Vegas Wi-Fiber transformed the c...

Lumkani is a company that provides fire detection devices to informal settlements. The company’s fire detector is specifically designed to monitor informal settlements for rises in temperature. Millions of Rands of damage has been saved by these devices. The device was first conceived as a solution to problems with using standard fire detection systems in informal settlements. Most fire detectors...

Drones have become more accessible and affordable, which has led to first responders gaining a drone program. More than ever disaster response teams are using these drones to map the disaster area. Scholar Farms is a drone training company that trains industry professionals to use data collected from UAVs. Dr. Gregory Crutsinger worked in the ecology field when he became inspired by drones. He wor...

Kevin and Mike sit down to talk about 2019 Under Fire event in Texas. Under Fire is an event in the fire industry for emerging technology, first responders, and vendors. Sponsored by Texas A&M Engineering Under Fire gives an opportunity for startups to showcase their new technology to an audience of first responders. The first day of Under Fire was hosted by Firstnet. Firstnet is a nationwide...