The NFPA Podcast

Americans living in rural areas are statistically older, sicker, and poorer than the general population. Compounding those factors is a lack of access to health care. Now, many are at high risk of losing emergency medical services, too. This episode of the NFPA Journal® Podcast takes a deeper look into this crisis.    

The United States has eradicated hospital fire deaths. Why can't other countries? We're bringing you the NFPA Journal® podcast a week early this month and diving into the complicated topic of international hospital fires—why they keep occurring with alarming frequency and what's being done to address them.

As we near the 20th anniversary of the Worcester, Massachusetts, cold storage warehouse fire, which killed six firefighters on December 3, 1999, the NFPA Journal Podcast catches up with Matthew Foley, an NFPA research associate who has ties to the deadly blaze and who authored "After Effect"—the cover story of the November/December issue of NFPA Journal on the lasting impact of the fire. Email ave...

In this episode of the NFPA Journal® Podcast, we take a look at the NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem and how recent events in Brazil serve as prime examples of that concept. -- Have feedback on the podcast? Let us know! Email Angelo Verzoni at averzoni@nfpa.org  or Jesse Roman at jroman@nfpa.org .    

On May 17, 2017, 31-year-old San Antonio firefighter Scott Deem died while searching for victims inside a burning building. After the fire, department leaders in command that night began working to build an innovative new facility, the Deem Training Center, to drill San Antonio's firefighters on "mayday" scenarios like the one that killed Deem. Since the facility opened in 2018, not only have crew...

Escape rooms are popping up everywhere. In 2014, there were only 22 escape rooms in the United States. Today, there are over 2,000. After a fire in an escape room killed five teenagers in Poland in January, many have asked, are they safe? NFPA Journal investigates that question in this episode.   

As disasters strike around the globe with greater frequency and severity, aid agencies are increasingly relying on a worldwide army of volunteers to listen to the digital chatter on social media emanating from communities in crisis. Learn how this "social monitoring" is helping response and recovery efforts become more effective. Jesse Roman, associate editor of NFPA Journal, shares insights from...

NFPA Journal Podcast is back!!!  We're trying out a new format so please let us know what you think, send an email to AVerzoni@nfpa.org. After a deadly blaze on a movie set in New York City, experts stress the importance of fire safety on movie and TV sets.  In this NFPA Journal Podcast, Angelo Verzoni discusses what he learned in writing his article on movie set fire safety.  This article was cre...

About 1 billion people worldwide live in areas known as shantytowns, informal settlements, or slums, where fire is an ever-present threat. Last year, a project carried out in a shantytown in South Africa reduced fire deaths to zero using a single, simple piece of technology: smoke alarms.

As Airbnb and other short-term rental services expand to include a range of property types, regulatory challenges create uncertainty over the level of safety those spaces should provide. BY ANGELO VERZONI

First Harvey. Then Irma. Then Maria. After three hurricanes pummeled the United States coast from late August through September, NFPA Journal's November/December issue includes interviews with several people who came face to face with all three storms. In this episode of the NFPA Journal Podcast, two of those people—Chief Samuel Peña of the Houston Fire Department and Chief David Downey of Miami-D...

Against a backdrop of active shooter events from coast to coast, NFPA began crafting its new standard on response and preparedness to active shooter and/or hostile events, NFPA 3000, in June. In this episode of the NFPA Journal Podcast, staff writer Angelo Verzoni talks with NFPA 3000 technical committee members about the need for the standard and what they hope to bring to the table in developing...

Jesse Roman sits down with Boston's Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn to discuss how Boston became a leader in the effort to combat firefighter cancer.  

It might seem strange today, but firefighters dying from falling off fire trucks used to be a problem— from 1977 to 1987, an average of nearly four firefighters died each year from falling off of trucks. Today, the problem is virtually unheard of thanks in large part to the 1987 adoption of NFPA 1500, the first fire service occupational safety standard. In this episode of NFPA Journal Podcast, hos...

With 19 different shows, in countries all over the world and in front of over 15 million patrons; making sure that every Cirque du Soleil show is up to code can seem like a herculean task.  On this episode Jesse Roman talks to the person in charge of that task, Jean-Francois Simard, International Code Advisor for Cirque.  Jesse and Jean-Francois discuss logistics, accommodating different authoriti...

If you are a healthcare facilities manager who is looking for more resources on how to be compliant with the 2012 version of NFPA 101 and NFPA 99, please visit www.nfpa.org/cms Jesse sits down with Robert Solomon, Division Manager for Building Fire Protection at NFPA, to talk about the recent announcement by the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS has published Medicare and Medica...

Major thanks to Chief Goldfeder for not only talking to us but doing it after an 11 hour car ride.  I think it is safe to say that the Chief is the first guest we've had to accomplish such a feat before our interview.  For those of you very few whom haven't heard of Chief Goldfeder and the Secret list, first what's wrong with you.  Go to firefighterclosecalls.com to see Chief's website and to subs...

First off, please let us know if you like our topics and if you have any ideas for other things we can talk about. Email Jesse at jroman@nfpa.org  and let us know what you think.  We've been receiving a lot of support for the podcast the past year and we would love to hear from you. In this episode, Jesse talked with Jeff Sargent and Mark Earley about the upcoming edition of the National Electrica...

First off, please let us know if you like this format! Email Jesse at jroman@nfpa.org  and let us know what you think.  We've been receiving a lot of support for the podcast the past year and we would love to hear from you.   In this episode Jesse talked with Val Charlton of Kishugu, a private organization that runs and manages Working on Fire.  Working on Fire is a South African government progra...

Jesse takes a break from his current story on liquid natural gas and the shale revolution to give a quick update live from the NFPA Journal newsroom.  Jesse will be back in March with a brand new podcast.  In the meantime, head over to nfpa.org/xchange to see a cool new member only exclusive.  NFPA Journal is releasing early access to the main IN COMPLIANCE article in XChange so you can get access...

What do you do when protesters set fires all over your city, then sabotage your efforts to put them out? Imagine responding to a fire only to be shot at on the fireground. In today’s NFPA Journal Podcast we hear from Jeffrey Segal, assistant chief of the Baltimore Fire Department, and Matt LaVanchy of the Pattonville, Missouri Fire District near Ferguson, Missouri about their recent experiences de...

Out of more than 63,000 wildland fires reported last year, specialized wildland firefighters responded to just 112, meaning local fire departments handled the rest. But there is little information about how well trained or capable municipal departments are to handle this job.  In this podcast, Jesse sits down with NFPA Senior Research Analyst Hylton Haynes to discuss a new NFPA study that looks at...

Ken Willette, Division Manager of Public Fire Protection for NFPA, sits down with Jesse to discuss how NFPA is engaging the fire service.  Ken talks about the change undergoing the fire service right now and where the future will be heading.  Jesse and Ken also discuss the Responder Forum, NFPA’s initiative to engage the emerging thought-leaders of the fire service with experts, analysts and resea...

Bangladesh is second only to China in garment exports to the West, but unsafe conditions have plagued its factories where thousands of workers have died in preventable tragedies over the years. In response, a consortium of Western retailers founded The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety in 2013 as a way to improve fire and life safety for Bangladesh’s roughly 4 million garment workers.  On toda...

Guy Colonna, NFPA’s division manager of Industrial and Chemical Engineering, sits down with Jesse Roman to discuss dust and current cultural events that are bringing the two together.  After an explosion at a dance party in Taiwan that resulted in over 10 deaths, public safety officials of events like “color runs” are looking into the dangers that can come with any dust.  Guy gives a great overvie...