Feb 10, 2026

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...

Jan 27, 2026

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...

Jan 8, 2026

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...

Dec 23, 2025

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...

Dec 9, 2025

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...