The NFPA Podcast

National Fire Protection Association

The NFPA Podcast is the place for safety professionals to stay up to speed on the fast-paced world of electrical, fire, and life safety. Hear in-depth conversations with people out in the field about how they are confronting new challenges and staying on top of emerging technologies to keep the world safe. Listen the second and fourth Tuesday of every month. Email jroman@nfpa.org to send feedback or recommend a topic for future episodes.

  1. 10 FEB

    The Volunteer Crisis

    Volunteer firefighters are the backbone of the U.S. emergency response system, but since 2008, nearly 200,000 volunteers have left the fire service, a drop of almost 25 percent. To make things worse, calls to fire departments have increased about 70 percent since 2008, leaving the firefighters who remain to do much more with much less. Despite all of this, little research has been done to find the causes of this crisis and what to do about it. But that is starting to change. Today on the podcast, I am joined by Joe Maruca, a board member of the National Volunteer Fire Council, and Ken Willette, the executive director of the North American Fire Training Directors. Both men recently worked with researchers on a massive new study looking at what effects training requirements have had on volunteer fire department recruitment and retention. During the interview, we discuss the many factors that have caused volunteers to leave the fire service, and how volunteer departments are adapting to their new reality. We also talk about what is being done to help chiefs and communities bring more volunteers into the fire service. Links:  Read the new Fire Protection Research report, "Understanding the Role of Training on Volunteer Firefighter Recruitment & Retention," coming at the end of February. Learn more about the National Volunteer Fire Council, and check out its new Make Me a Firefighter program, which matches volunteers with department needs. Learn more about the North American Fire Training Directors

    1 h y 6 min

  2. 27 ENE

    Swiss Nightclub Fire Follows a Familiar and Tragic Script

    In the early hours of New Year's Day, a blaze erupted at Le Constellation, a popular bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, killing 40 young people and injuring more than 100 others. Authorities believe the fire started when embers from sparklers ignited foam soundproofing material on the ceiling. It is latest in a long line of eerily similar deadly fires in nightclubs involving pyrotechnics. Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes? Today on the podcast, you will hear a powerful conversation with two survivors of The Station nightclub fire, one of the deadliest nightclub fires in U.S. history. They talk with two prominent fire safety and burn advocates about their emotional reaction to Le Constellation, and what it was like to live through and recover from a similar tragedy. Then, the group discusses why these lessons are so hard to learn, and what we can all collectively do to help stop these fires from happening. This conversation first aired on Girls with Grafts, a burn survivor's podcast published by the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors. LINKS Learn more about the NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem  Get involved with NFPA's 'Safety Doesn't Happen by Chance' campaign Learn more about the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors Listen to more episodes of Girls with Grafts

    50 min

  3. 8 ENE

    Assessing the Needs of the U.S. Fire Service

    Every five years since 2001, NFPA has conducted a massive research project known as the Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service. It's a survey that goes out to about 30,000 fire departments across the country with questions aimed at finding out whether the fire service has the resources it needs to accomplish the enormous job we've asked them to take on. The next survey, which is the Sixth Needs Assessment, was sent to departments via mail and email in October, and is due back by February 15. Today on the podcast, we are joined by an all-star panel featuring the president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the president of the Metro Chiefs, and NFPA's director of research. We discuss the ins and outs of this critically important survey and dive into the "pain points" facing the modern fire service, from skyrocketing EMS call volumes and firefighter burnout to the emerging threats of lithium-ion battery fires and AI implementation. LINKS:  Learn more about the Sixth Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service survey, and to see reports from past surveys. Questions about participating, email nasurvey@nfpa.org, or call 800-343-8890.

    48 min

  4. 23/12/2025

    Will Female Firefighters Soon Have Better Fitting Gear?

    About 80 percent of female firefighters say that their personal protective clothing doesn't fit right, and studies show that ill-fitting gear puts women at greater risk of being injured on the job. In this podcast from 2023, Jesse talks to two textile researchers working on multi-year project to better understand the issue and to gather the data needed to design female-specific turnout gear.  Before the episode, Jesse gives a quick update on the project, which has now moved onto a crucial second phase. Researchers are now gathering measurements from thousands of women in the fire service, which they will use to design the first prototypes of female specific personal protective clothing. Researchers are looking for female firefighters who are willing share their measurement data. This can be done by yourself with an app on your phone and takes only a few minutes. Visit, nfpa.org/femaleppe to learn how to help.  Links: 
 Visit the research page to learn more about the project and how to submit measurement data Read and NFPA Journal feature story about the project to understand and solve the problem of ill-fitting PPE for female firefighters. Watch a webinar presentation with researchers Cassandra Kwon and Meredith McQuerry

    41 min

  5. 09/12/2025

    Testing the EV Toolbox

    Myriad new tools have emerged in recent years that claim to help firefighters safely contain and extinguish electric vehicle fires. However, few of these tools have been independently tested, until now. This year, researchers burned dozens of EV battery packs and four full-sized vehicles to assess the effectiveness of these tools and the tactics required to use them.  Today on the podcast, we talk to one of the project's lead researchers to learn about how the study was done and what insights emerged. We also discuss some promising new tactics that could significantly reduce the time and water it takes for crews to put out an EV fire.  Links:  Read the recent NFPA Journal article on this study and its findings Watch a Fire Protection Reserach Webinar on the project and its findings See and learn more about NFPA resources and training for firefighter EV tactics

    1 h y 7 min

  6. 25/11/2025

    Cooking Fire Facts and Figures

    Cooking is such a routine part of everyday life that it's easy to overlook its potential dangers. According to NFPA research, cooking is the leading cause of reported home fires, home fire injuries, and home fire deaths in the United States. With Thanksgiving this week—the day with by far the most cooking fire incidents of any day on the calendar—we take a close look at NFPA's latest cooking fire statistics to better understand how these fires start, who the victims tend to be, and what public educators should know (1:15). Then, we rerun a segment from 2020 exploring the science behind those viral videos of turkey-fryer fireballs (7:37). Then, in Code Corner, NFPA engineer Brian O'Connor talks about the different letters and numbers on fire extinguishers and what they mean (19:23). LINKS:  Watch turkey frying gone wrong View NFPA cooking fire prevention resources Read the 2023 NFPA research report on US home cooking fires

    26 min

  7. 11/11/2025

    Tilting the Wildfire Odds

    In even the most destructive wildfires, some structures survive untouched while everything around them is incinerated. It begs the question: What factors are most responsible for determining if a home is destroyed or survives during these events? A team of researchers spent years trying to answer that important question. They gathered massive troves of data from California's most destructive wildfires, then used artificial intelligence machine learning to analyze what factors make the biggest difference in home survivability.  On today's podcast, we talk to wildfire researcher and study co-author Michael Gollner about what the team found out, how they did it, and how this valuable information will be used. We also discuss whether AI is changing the way we study and think about wildfire. LINKS:  Read the wildfire research paper we discussed in this episode. Read the NFPA Journal article about this project Learn more about the Firewise USA program at NFPA

    52 min

  8. 28/10/2025

    Fire Protection Engineering's Shifting Landscape

    The fire protection engineering profession is in a strange place right now. For one thing, there's a growing global shortage of FPEs just as demand for their services is surging. Factors such as accelerating technology, global building booms, and intensifying natural disasters are making their work more challenging than ever. And on top of that, some predict that artificial intelligence will completely alter how FPEs do their jobs over the next decade. Today on the podcast, I talk about all of this with Bill Koffel, a veteran fire protection engineer and director of the new online fire protection engineering program at the University of Maryland. We discuss Maryland's effort to expand access to FPE training, how the FPE profession is evolving, the challenges of attracting and educating the next generation, and what role AI might play in all of this for good and for bad.  LINKS: A new NFPA Journal cover story on this topic will be out soon! Look for it online and in the upcoming Winter 2025 issue.  Learn more about the University of Maryland's online degree program in fire protection engineering

    37 min
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The NFPA Podcast is the place for safety professionals to stay up to speed on the fast-paced world of electrical, fire, and life safety. Hear in-depth conversations with people out in the field about how they are confronting new challenges and staying on top of emerging technologies to keep the world safe. Listen the second and fourth Tuesday of every month. Email jroman@nfpa.org to send feedback or recommend a topic for future episodes.

Información

  • Creador
    National Fire Protection Association
  • Años de actividad
    2007 - 2026
  • Episodios
    250
  • Clasificación
    Apto
  • Copyright
    © NFPA 2023
  • Mostrar sitio web
    The NFPA Podcast

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