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.

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

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

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

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

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

Not long ago, a dirty, sooty turnout coat and helmet was a badge of honor in the fire service—tangible proof that a firefighter was in the action. But as concern grew about the high levels of cancer in the fire service, that culture has totally flipped. Now, fire departments around the world are going to great lengths to ensure that their members never have to wear a uniform covered in carcinogens. But to do that, you need to know when it's actually clean. That isn't as easy as it sounds.

For the past 10 years, PPE expert Jeff Stull has helped lead a Fire Protection Research Foundation project focused on answering those questions. Stull joins the podcast today to discuss the complexities of figuring out how clean is clean, the impacts the project has had on firefighter health, and what further research needs to be done as we move into the next generation of PPE.

LINKS: 
Read Jeff Stull's NFPA Journal Feature story about the project and its impacts
Read the project's scope, aims, and final reports
Learn more about the new NFPA 1850

Fire Prevention Week, which runs this year from October 5–11, is the longest running public safety observance in United States history. This year for the first time, the Fire Prevention Week theme will focus on lithium-ion battery safety. Even as the technology has become ubiquitous in modern life, the general public still remains largely unaware of the significant fire safety risks that batteries can pose.

Today on the podcast we talk to Kelly Ransdell, NFPA's director of public education, and Brian O'Connor, a technical services engineer at NFPA, about why NFPA is highlighting lithium-ion battery safety, why batteries have become such a prevalent home fire hazard, and what key safety points the public and fire educators need to know.

Links:

Visit the Fire Prevention Week website for tipsheets, campaign materials, and other resources

See additional campaign resources at fpw.org/battery

Read an NFPA Journal feature story on the emerging hazards of consumer lithium-ion batteries and how it impacts the fire service