Fire Protection Podcast

Join us for an enlightening discussion on the intersection of firefighting and technology in Episode 61. Our special guest, Kevin Sofen, from the Smart Firefighting podcast, shares his insights and expertise on how technology is revolutionizing the field of firefighting. In this episode, we explore the innovative ways technology is being integrated into firefighting practices, from advanced fire suppression systems to cutting-edge communication tools. Kevin provides insights into the latest trends and developments shaping the future of fire safety and emergency response. Whether you're a seasoned firefighter, industry professional, or simply interested in the evolving landscape of fire protection, this episode offers valuable insights and inspiration for embracing technology's role in safeguarding lives and property. Tune in to Episode 61 of The Fire Protection Podcast, and discover how innovation transforms the firefighting industry with Kevin Sofen from Smart Firefighting.

Join us for an illuminating episode of The Fire Protection Podcast as we explore the critical role of The Joint Commission in safeguarding healthcare facilities against fire hazards. Our special guest, Jim Kendig, Field Director of The Joint Commission, offers unique insights into the organization's pivotal role in ensuring fire and life safety standards are met across healthcare environments. From establishing rigorous standards to conducting comprehensive inspections, Jim Kendig unveils the meticulous process behind The Joint Commission's efforts to protect patients, staff, and visitors from potential fire risks. Discover the importance of compliance with fire safety protocols and the profound impact it has on maintaining a secure healthcare environment. Whether you're a healthcare professional, fire safety expert, or simply passionate about protecting lives, this episode provides invaluable knowledge about the vital intersection of healthcare and fire protection. Tune in as we navigate through the complexities of fire safety regulations and the unwavering commitment of The Joint Commission to preserving the well-being of all those within healthcare settings.

Host Drew Slocum chats with John Mackey about the state of the fire protection industry, NFPA, passing the torch to the younger generation, and what the future looks like in fire protection. How does data play an increasingly important role in ensuring the safety of our communities and buildings? How can the fire protection industry act faster to keep up with technological advances? Find out on this episode of The Fire Protection Podcast.

In the latest episode of The Fire Protection Podcast, Bryan Schultz, Co-Founder of Brycer and The Compliance Engine (TCE), joins podcast host Drew Slocum to talk about the crucial aspect of compliance software concerning fire protection systems. Bryan and Drew discuss the challenges fire protection companies, fire departments, contractors, and building owners face when ensuring compliance. Brian explains the essential role that their cutting-edge software plays in ensuring the rigorous testing and maintenance of fire protection systems. This podcast episode encapsulates a forward-thinking perspective on enhancing fire protection systems' probability of optimally operating. The overarching goal remains clear: to fortify building safety measures through technology, collaboration, and strategic foresight. Join us as we explore compliance software, labor challenges, industry standardization, and the evolving safety landscape in fire protection systems.

The Canadian Fire Alarm Association (CFAA) is a member-supported, non-profit association established in 1973 to unite and support Canada's fire alarm industry. Today, we have over 400 members and over 3000 registered fire alarm technicians. Troy Life & Fire Safety Ltd. is a private corporation established in 1979. It focuses on customer service, offering Canada's comprehensive lineup of fire alarms, fire suppression, and security products. For over 60 years, NOTIFIER has been in a leadership position in the fire alarm industry. Today we are the largest manufacturer of engineered fire alarm systems, with over 400 distributors worldwide and regional support operations on every continent, helping to ensure we provide the flexibility and options your business needs. Our commitment to products and partnerships propels NOTIFIER to stand proudly above the rest. Inspect Point is a software platform that helps fire & life safety professionals run their business from inspection to collection. With Inspect Point, companies like yours can ensure efficient and profitable operations while better-protecting customers’ properties and communities.

Dyne Fire Protection Labs is an independent testing laboratory serving customers throughout the world. They provide quick, easy, and accurate testing with our free kits and shipping for most kits, and their test reports are in your inbox in five business days. Inspect Point is a software platform that helps fire & life safety professionals run their business from inspection to collection. With Inspect Point, businesses like yours can ensure efficient and profitable operations while better-protecting customers’ properties and communities.

In this conversation, experts from Potter delve into IntelliView, a cloud-connected platform, discussing its origins in nitrogen generators and its expansion to integrate various Potter products like fire alarms and leak rate monitors. They highlight the evolution toward cloud connectivity, integrations into IntelliView, and advancements in fire and sprinkler systems. The discussion covers topics such as emergency wireless communication systems, aspirating detection, and the availability of training resources and webinars on Potter’s website. Join in to explore the innovative strides in fire protection technology and cloud-connected solutions.

For years we have worked with Friends of Firefighters to highlight their impact on the firefighting and fire protection community in NYC and beyond. The organization was started in the wake of the Sept 11th tragedy, providing aid to personnel at Ground Zero. Over the last 20+ years, It has transformed into a support network for firefighters and their families struggling with mental health and wellness. These heroes put their lives on the line for us and we should return the favor. Giving Tuesday is an important tradition in our business. Inspect Point will be matching any donation to Friends of Firefighters through the rest of 2023.

0:02 - Intro 1:25 - Looking Up Everywhere You Go 3:40 - Who is Matt Bass? 3:57 - A Great Mentor 8:26 - The Importance of Giving Back 9:51 - My Trusty NFPA 25 Handbook 10:45 - YouTube Videos 12:28 - NFPA 25 Inspectors Group 14:57 - Open Feedback 15:42 - Hey, There’s Bob Caputo! 16:23 - Not to Name Drop but Tracy Demy, Ralph Bliss, Tom Parish 17:15 - “Just When I Thought I Was Out…” 17:49 - Need a Job in Antarctica? 20:22 - A Love of Helping People 21:50 - Make a Group Anywhere 23:36 - It’s Global 24:44 - Need Photos of a Specific Sprinkler Head Deficiency? 25:58 - Sarcasm & Snark: We Love to Roast Each Other 26:46 - Our Industry Works Hard and Plays Hard 28:24- Lots of Consolidation in Fire Protection 31:19 - The Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Commanders Trying to be one Team 32:06 - People Starting Their Small Businesses 33:33 - The Age Gap: Younger People Need to Step Up 35:09 - The Experienced People Need to Teach the Next Gen the Details 36:13 - Learn Everything You Possibly Can 37:36 - Quick Response Round! 37:50 - Coolest New Product in Fire Protection 38:06 - Flex Heads! 39:48 - Favorite “Star Wars” Movie? 40:30 - “Return of the Jedi” 40:57 - A Bar? Nope, A Toy Store 41:44- Favorite Dry Pipe Valve? 42:06 - Don’t Over-Engineer Every 44:17 - Wrapping Up 45:07 - Where to Find Matt, aka. Maddie 47:45 - Money isn’t Everything 48:36 - Helping Someone is Worth More Than Dollars 48:59 - Until Next Time

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0:02 - Intro 3:20 - The History of SDi and Detector Testers 4:55 - Cable Strippers and No Climb Products 6:33 - SDi and Detectors Taking over the World 11:44 - Codes and Standards all over the Globe 14:34 - Must be Well-Rounded 15:38 - New Technologies in Detection 16:26 - Cans of Smoke vs. Electronic Smoke 17:20 - Canned Smoke is not Dolphin or EPA-friendly 20:41 - The Rick and Oliver Show 21:01 - Cans of Smoke are Hazardous in the Air and in the Heat 22:15 - NFPA 72 and ULC Changes 23:32 - The NFPA Standards Process 24:55 - Cybersecurity and Remote Access 25:42 - Software is usually Ahead of the Times 26:50 - COVID Accelerated Remote Access 27:58 - New Environmental Sustainability Groups 30:15- Smoke and Heat Testing with a Digital Record 31:12 - Digital Records Create Reports - Automatically 32:21 - Oliver Demonstrates the Testifire XTR2 33:55- A Detector Communicating to Software 34:17 - It's All About Deficiencies - Identifying and Fixing Them 35:47 - Works on Everything - even 40-year-old Detectors! 38:31 - The All Singing and All Dancing System 39:26 - Protection from Liability with Digital Reports 40:32 - SDi and Detector Testers Try to Recruit Drew 41:39 - SDi and Detector Tester Partnership with Inspect Point 42:00 - Living in a Software World 45:24 - Quick Response Round! 46:00 - Rick is on NFPA 461 for Spaceports! 47:57 - A Straight-Talking Dutchman 48:16 - Oliver's Football Clubs 48:52 - Pork Roll or Taylor Ham? 49:30 - Wrap-Up

0:02 - Intro 3:20 - Almost a Lawyer 4:10 - Navy Vets in Fire Protection 6:33 - Mentors 9:20 - Bob is Humble 11:42 - Teaching 12:18 - The Godfather of All Things Fire & Life Safety 14:35 - DOL Approvals 17:20 - COVID Taught Us About Virtual Training 17:38 - New AFSA Location in Texas 18:21 - Labs & Classrooms 21:20 - Electronic Reporting & Transmitting is the Way to Go 22:39 - NFPA Annex is a Great Tool 23:50 - Terradactyl Bytes 24:13 - The Feel of Pipe in Your Hands 25:51 - More Opportunities 26:10 - Not All Hollywood Deluge Systems 26:41 - When Seconds Count 27:13 - Nepo Babies 27:48 - Need to Reach Kids Sooner 28:42 - Contractors Need to Join an Organization Like AFSA 29:38 - One Tech Support Call or Email and it Pays for Itself 30:39 - Biggest Fire Sprinkler Show in the World 33:10 - Dope & Tape 34:33 - Opening Party Will Be Magical! 36:10 - Fire Protection Industry Evolution & Other “Bobservations” 38:51 - New Type of Fire Inspectors 40:20 - ITM is Bulletproof 41:14 - Three Biggest Causes of Fire 42:35 - Quick Response Round! 44:02 - Wrap-Up

0:06 - Fire Protection Terminology 2:34 - Intro to Scott MacRitchies 3:39 - Steve /Ulmer & the Buffalo Bills 5:00 - A Found Industry 5:17 - Drew has been in Fire Protection for 20 years 5:40 - LBX Global & Smart Infrastructure 7:04 - FireM 7:45 - Fire Panel Data Points 8:22 - Capturing Insights 9:20 - Upgrading what is already in Place 10:10 - My Dishwasher tells me when it's finished 11:00 - Connected IoT 12:23 - Pain Points for Technicians 13:35 - How to Attract Young People to Fire Protection 15:01 - Roll a Truck only when you really need to 16:10 - Third-Party Device 17:13 - All Data in One Place 19:03 - Carbon Copies? 21:50 - Used to be hours, then minutes, and now seconds 24: 40 - A Little Box 25:54 - Going Mobile? 31:02 - We are a Conduit 33:36 - “My Panel is Beeping.” 34:14 - In Other IoT News & Trends in Manufacturing 36:10 - We are all becoming Friends 37:38 - Co-petitors 38:00 -NFPA - FireM at Booth #442 39:09 -Nathan Brown, FireM’s inventor, will be there 39:57 - New Products, including Fire Extinguisher Monitoring 41:20 - Healthcare Hand Portables 41:44 - Looking for Feedback 43:30 - Hit the Inspect Point Button! 44:00 - Fast Round 44:20 - Favorite Installation? 45:10 - Favorite Suppression System? 46:02 - Scott’s Favorite Suppression System is in the Future! 47:04 - Table Smash? 48:20 - Wrap Up See you at NFPA!

0:05 - Intro 1:15 - Todd has been on the FPP before (Episode #38) 1:25 - Intro to Industrial Fire Protection (IFP) and SEVO Systems 3:20 - Todd's favorite Special Hazard 4:37 - Moynihan Train Hall's fantastic flame detectors 5:40 - Fire Detection is the Brains of it 🧠 5:54 - IFP & Clean Energy 6:26 - Energy Storage System (ESS) Market 6:49 - Lithium Ion Batteries 7:41 - Importance of Detection 8:17 - What are we trying to protect? 8:41 - What tech does what? 9:26 - Tesla 10:35 - We've learned a lot in the last 3 - 5 years 10:45 - Who's issue is it? Fire? Battery? 11:00 - Big emphasis on moving to electric everything 11:20 - Drew wants a power wall 11:57 - Todd won't park an electric car in his garage 12:40 - The Jetsons 12:50 - A Software Solution? 13:18 - A new arm of Inspect Point? 13:40 - New projects for IFP? 14:06 - Aviation Market 14:52 - Alternatives to Foam 15:20 - New Ideas for the industry 15:34 - The mess of foam safety 16:30 - Changes in thinking 16:38 - Foam manufacturers have gone through a lot 17:17 - Fluorine-free options 17:33 - Can systems be easily swapped out? 18:37 - How does clean agent fire protection work? 21:25 - The approval process for clean agents 22:40 - New technologies included in NFPA standards 24:27 - ARFF! 27:50 - Just what are we protecting? 28:56 - Paging Mr. Aaron Johnson! 30:40 - Electric Planes 31:34 - Technology opens doors in fire protection 32:37 - Paging Mr. John Demeter! 33:27 - American Innovation & Manufacturing Act (AIM) 33:41 - The HFC Debate 35:59 - HFC cuts coming well before the 2035 cut-off date 36:49 - Drew pulls from his brain 🧠 37:13 - 3M's Big Stir in the industry 38:27 - FK-512 and 3M™ Novec™ 1230 39:30 - PFAS is being rebranded - some are non-toxic 41:00 - Back in the day... 41:40 - Barry White Voice 42:20 - SEVO Systems & FK512 43:40 - There's PFAS in Prozac 45:00 - Quick Response Round! 46:00 - Lobsta! 🦞 47:00 Trade show love 50:00 - Evil Empires & Wrap up

0:05 - Drew's Intro 0:30 - Who is Peerless? 1:20 - The #1 Fire Pump City is NYC 1:30 - What is Travis's Background? 2:20 - The Digital Transformation 3:15 - Fire Protection World lags in Digitalization 5:05 - When you Need a Fire Pump, you Really Need a Fire Pump 5:40 - Code Cycles 6:01 - Smart Systems in a Home vs. for Fire Pumps 7:02 - Lots of Data Collected 7:07 - Data Can Now Come to You 8:00 - Things Changed Post-COVID 8:20 - Testing Frequency & Staffing 9: 15 - What Fire Pump? We Don't Have a Fire Pump. 10:30 - Visibility = Better Protection 11:10 - NFPA25 Section Re-Write 11:48 - Perks to NFPA25 Re-Write With Remote Monitoring 12:30 - Remote Testing? 13:15 - Constant Flow of Data 14:10 - Can See What Happens in the System in between Inspections 14:20 - Digitization vs. Digitalization 15:30 - Saves Manhours 17:36 - Will Always Need Technicians 19:43 - Hardware vs. Software 21:08 - 80 to 100 Points of Data 23:00 - How Does it All Work? 23:40 - How Do You Avoid Hacking? 26:26 - Biggest Adopters So Far 28:56 - Who Should Get This? Building Owners or ITM Contractors? 31:30 - Efficiency of Knowing What the System Needs Before Going to It 32:00 - Various Costs 40:30 - The Steps of the Digital Revolution in Fire Pumps 41:01 - The System Calls a Tech to Come to Fix It 42:30 - Want to Know More? 43: 03 - Join Us For a Webinar on 12/7 43: 31 - Functionality During a Live Incident 44:20 - Can Know if Fire is Contained 45: 04 - Can Alert Fire Brigade 46: 27 - It's All About Safety 46:50 - Drew's Outro & Contact Info for Travis

0:15 - Drew's Intro from Antarctica 1:39 - Intro from Canada 1:54 - Shout out to Troy Life & Fire Safety 2:09 - Conversion to Listed Antifreeze 3:20 - What is out there? 4:17 - Sean, who are you? 5:30 - Supply Chain 5:50 - NFPA25 and Older Systems 7:34 - Is a Dry System Better? 9:18 - Will there be a TIA? 10:07 - How Many Old Systems are Out there? 11:13 - The Contractor Still has the Liability 12:05 - Refractometers & other new Tools 13:17 - The Field Testing Challenge: it's a Science Experiment 16:38 - Huge Challenge for Contractors 19:00 - When there were Large Vats of Glycerine! 22:58 - ESFR 26:50 - What's Next? 28:01 - Get Trained 29:44 - Sugar & Concrete 32:09 - NYC DOB 35:43 - Canadian Socks 37:55 - Inspection Software Makes it Easy for AHJs 39:00 - Fire Sprinklers Save Lives 39:40 - Outro

0:15 - Introduction 2:10 - Remember the Pandemic? 3:09 - The Pre-Engineered Systems Niche 6:04 - Why a Dry Chemical System? 7:20 - NFPA420 - Extraction Booths 13:03 - The Restaurant Industry is Evolving 14:05 - Ventless Solutions & Fireballs 16:14 - More Electric Appliances in Restaurants 23:42 - More Rigorous Standards, Testing, Reporting, and Repairing 28:18 - Labor Shortage 32:06 - Recession, but Everybody Has to Eat 33:50 - International Changes in Restaurant Fire Protection 41:30 - Electrical Detection 46:46 - The Jetsons is now 50:11 - The Barista Bot 51:47 - Please Reach out to Jamie with What You See 53:34 - Welding for Five Year Olds 54:20 - Wrap-Up 57:10 - Outro

0:41 - Peter’s Introduction 2:56 - SSi Background 4:52 - Greensol & Clean Agent Protection 9:20 - SNAP (Significant New Alternative Policy) / Eco-Friendly 11:05 - What is FirePASS? 16:47 - Secondary Systems? 17:44 - Room Integrity & FirePASS 23:30 - SSi Battery Solution & Lithium-Ion Fires 26:50 - Peter’s Experience as an Executive Director of the CFAA 29:20 - Importance of Standardized Documentation 33:43 - Peter’s Perspective as a Firefighter & Industry Professional 37:22 - Technology Adoption in the Industry 40:15 - Quick Response Round 43:34 - Final Thoughts

0:16 - Fire Alarm Gateways 4:14 - Code Updates 6:58 - Louisiana: From Tags to QR Codes 12:55 - Consolidation in the Industry 17:03 - Success of Fire Protection in 2021 18:50 - A Recession-Proof Industry 20:30 - Final Thoughts on NFPA Boston 23:41 - Upcoming Shows 25:30 - Closing Thoughts

0:15 - Introduction 3:35 - COVID in Fire Protection 6:26 - Engagement in the Industry 8:45 - Adoption Among Jurisdictions 11:58 - Shortage of Engineers / Technicians 16:25 - Active-Resume.com & Skilled Labor 19:40 - New Detection Technology 24:30 - Tesla & Lithium Ion Battery Fires 28:24 - Latest From Potter