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Feb 11, 2025

In 1973, fire killed and injured more people in the United States than in any other industrialized nation in the world. The next year, Congress passed the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act, a landmark bill that made significant investments in fire research, training, and education. Within a few decades, the...


Jan 28, 2025

Modern warehouses and distribution centers are huge. Some have footprints larger than 60 American football fields and are filled with densely packed racks up to 100 feet tall. When a giant building like this catches fire, what can firefighters do? 
 
Today on the podcast, we talk to a veteran firefighter and a...


Jan 14, 2025

In the last week, huge swaths of metro Los Angeles have been devastated by wildfires fueled by parched vegetation and hurricane force winds. The images and videos of once vibrant neighborhoods reduced to smoldering ash are, in a word, horrifying. Today on the podcast, we try to make sense of what is happening in Los...


Dec 24, 2024

You could make the argument that artificial intelligence was the most consequential new technology for fire and life safety in 2024. Several fire departments began dabbling with AI this year, and some even hope to have operational AI in the coming year.

As we head into 2025, we thought it was a good time to revisit our...


Dec 10, 2024

This summer, long-awaited changes to the standard that sets the performance requirements for smoke alarms went into effect, marking a new era for the technology. For the first time, smoke alarms must now pass a test to show they are resistant to nuisance alarms triggered by cooking smoke. On today’s podcast, smoke...