The NFPA Podcast

Since 1982, the Fire Protection Research Foundation, the research affiliate of NFPA, has been instrumental in answering countless important questions about how best to protect the world from fire and electrical dangers. Its research has improved safety in countless industries and led to numerous changes to codes, consumer products, fire test standards, and more.   Today on the podcast, we celebrat...

Dr. Denise Smith, who has spent decades researching the physiological impact of firefighting, joins The NFPA Podcast to discuss how firefighters who have been infected with COVID-19 could struggle for weeks or even months following acute illness as they return to work. Smith and other researchers are currently working on a project supported by the Fire Protection Research Foundation to study long...

Static electricity doesn't usually get a lot of attention, but maybe that should change. One tiny spark, many times smaller than what a human can perceive or feel, can cause huge industrial accidents with deadly consequences. And the findings of a new study by the Fire Protection Research Foundation suggest that incidents involving static are much more common than most experts previously believed....

Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell, who was appointed as the US fire administrator in October, joins The NFPA Podcast to discuss her priorities for the US Fire Administration in 2022 and beyond—from the need to focus on first responder health and safety to the need to better train our nation's firefighters on a wide range of emerging hazards.   LINKS: Watch Moore-Merrell, NFPA President Jim Pauley, and others...

In early January, two of the deadliest residential fires of the past 40 years in the US happened just days apart in Philadelphia and the Bronx. A total of 29 people died, including more than a dozen children.    On today's podcast, we look at the factors that led to such a tragic loss of life (0:52) and ask what we might learn from these incidents. NFPA experts on codes, firefighting, fire investi...

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. In today's episode of The NFPA Podcast, we revisit an interview NFPA Journal Executive Editor Scott Sutherland conducted with Jeremy Inglis in October. Inglis, a Canadian fire chief, discusses how firefighters, building inspectors, and others can learn to better identify and help prevent human trafficking.   LINKS: Read the NFPA J...

Two important figures in the US Fire Service, Russ Sanders and Gregory Cade, have announced they will be retiring at the end of 2021 after a combined 105 years of service to the fire profession. In today's Part 2, we talk to Greg Cade, who rose from a volunteer firefighter to big city fire chief, and eventually to US Fire Administrator, the top-ranking fire officer in the nation. Cade has also ser...

Two important figures in the US Fire Service, Russ Sanders and Gregory Cade, have announced they will be retiring at the end of 2021 after a combined 105 years of service to the fire profession. In today's Part 1, we talk to Russ Sanders, who has helped guide the influential Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association for the last 26 years. Before that, Sanders was a firefighter at the Louisville (Kentuc...

A significant effort is underway to combine and consolidate dozens of NFPA emergency response standards; the aim is to streamline the number of documents that departments need to consult on a given topic. In this episode, we talk to the leaders of the consolidation project (1:08) to learn how and why it's happening, and how it will improve the lives of those who use the codes. Then, (10:02) we tal...

When the Richard Spring Fire tore through southwestern Montana in August, Clint McRae, a 4th generation Montana cattle rancher, feared he'd lose not only his home, but possibly hundreds of animals and the vital grasslands they depend on for survival. On the podcast, McRae talks about that fire, his role as first responder on his property, and the desperate strategies he and other ranchers use to t...

An estimated 1 billion people worldwide currently live in informal settlements, including slums and shantytowns. Experts believe that number could double or even triple over the next 30 years. In today's episode, Professor Richard Walls of South Africa's Stellenbosch University discusses his research on the fire problem in informal settlements and some of the proposed solutions to address the prob...

The theme to this year's Fire Prevention Week is "Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety," but what if you can't hear, or have a mobility issue that makes it difficult evacuate? For the estimated 1 billion people with disabilities worldwide, being notified of a fire and getting out of a building in an emergency often requires much more preplanning.   Mark Larson, a former Idaho state fire marshal who has...

In 2019, a massive explosion rocked an energy storage facility in Surprise, Arizona, sending four firefighters to the hospital. With ever more powerful energy storage systems, or ESS, being installed across the world, researchers, firefighters, and manufacturers immediately understood that Surprise could be a seminal moment for the safety of this emerging technology.   Today on the podcast, we go...

It's hard to believe that the September 11 terrorist attacks happened 20 years ago this month. Of the nearly 3,000 people killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in rural Pennsylvania, more that 400 were emergency responders, including 343 firefighters.   On today's podcast, we consider how that day forever changed the US fire service. First, we'll look at the dedicated responder netwo...

As the flying taxi industry readies for takeoff, critical fire, electrical, and life safety questions remain about the ground infrastructure needed to make commercial use of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft a reality. On today's episode, we discuss how NFPA is working to answer those questions with Rex Alexander, a veteran helicopter pilot and technical committee member for N...

When home fire sprinklers are present, residents are 80 percent more likely to survive a fire, and yet they are installed in only a fraction of new homes. For the past 25 years, a group called the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition has worked to increase sprinkler use in North America, despite fierce opposition from various home builders. On today's podcast, we talk to the president of HFSC about its s...

For much of the past year, NFPA researchers have been working on a gigantic project to collect and analyze the last four decades of residential fire statistics in the United States. While they found that fires and fire deaths have been cut in half since 1980, there are some aspects of the fire problem are actually worse now than 40 years ago. On this podcast, we talk to researcher Birgitte Messers...

Safety departments are awash with valuable community data, but figuring out how to use this mountain of information can be daunting. We talk to former Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer, one of the leading experts on Community Risk Reduction, about how fire departments can better use their data to create impactful programs to reduce risk. He also discusses a new digital tool out this mo...

Last week was the four-year anniversary of London's deadly Grenfell Tower fire. In today's episode we interview Kate Lamble, host and producer of a BBC podcast that for the past three years has followed the United Kingdom's government investigation into the fire, which killed 72 people. Plus, a conversation with NFPA researcher Birgitte Messerschmidt on the risk of facade fires globally and what r...

In the United States, there's a fire in a building under construction or renovation every hour and a half, according to NFPA data. Today on the podcast, Angelo speaks with Kevin Carr (4:15), NFPA staff liaison to NFPA 241, Standard for Safeguarding Construction, Alteration, and Demolition Operations, to learn more about construction site fires and how to prevent them. Plus, a safety executive with...

There are nearly 2,000 fires in recreational vehicles per year, according to a recent report from the Fire Protection Research Foundation; meanwhile, RV use in North America hit an all-time high in 2020 due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. On this episode, we talk to Doug Mulvaney, a director at Kampgrounds of America, and the chair of NFPA 1192, Standard for Recreational Vehicles, about what the...

May is National Electrical Safety Month. Today on the podcast, Derek talks to Electrical Safety Foundation International President Brett Brenner (3:01) about what the data says on who most often experiences electrical injuries and how, as well as electrical safety considerations in the age of electric vehicles and smart home technology. Plus, a conversation with NEC Correlating Committee Chair Lar...

Today on the podcast, we look at how fire and life safety messaging is developed and spread. Who creates these important messages about cooking, candles, and changing the batteries in your fire alarms? How is the guidance updated as new information arrives and new threats emerge?   First, Robby talks to Kelly Ransdell (2:05), the NFPA staff liaison of the group responsible for crafting and updatin...

More than a year after the COVID-19 virus closed buildings around the world, many large facilities are preparing to reopen in the coming months, including universities, gyms, theaters, and office buildings. It's a unique situation, perhaps unprecedented, to have so many facilities all coming back to life at the same time after such a long hiatus.   On today's podcast, we speak to fire protection e...

In recent years, new insights into how structural fires behave have led to some of the most significant tactical changes the fire service has seen in decades. All of these lessons have been collected in a new document, NFPA 1700, Guide to Structural Fire Fighting , which was published last fall.   Today on the podcast, we talk to the two researchers who are perhaps most responsible for our current...