Decades from now when we name at the seminal fires from the 21st Century, the Grenfell Tower fire in London, which killed 72 people in June 2017, will certainly be the list. Today on the podcast, we consider Grenfell’s enduring lessons with Jose Torero, one of the world’s most prominent fire protection engineers and a key figure in the United Kingdom’s seven-year public inquiry into the tragedy. It’s safe to say that no one has a better technical understanding than Torero of the underlying causes and impactful lessons of Grenfell— lessons that have already reshaped how people across the world think about regulation and building protection.

LINKS:

Read the final report from the United Kingdom's extensive inquiry into the causes of the Grenfell Tower Fire.

Read an in-depth NFPA Journal report exploring the UK's final Grenfell report.

Watch Jose Torero's keynote presentation from the 2025 NFPA Conference & Expo.

More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in low-and-middle income countries, according to the World Bank. In these nations, it's often a huge challenge to find the resources needed to build the systems of safety that people in higher-income countries take for granted. To put it in perspective, in the African nation of Uganda, there are just two fire trucks and 12 firefighters per million residents. In contrast, the U.S. has more than 1,000 firefighters and 200 fire trucks per million residents.

Today on the podcast we talk to Samuel Nikoma, a fire safety advocate in Uganda who has an ambitious goal of slashing the fire deaths there in half. We discuss Eastern Africa’s significant fire safety challenges, and how he is trying to build more awareness and grassroots efforts to start addressing them.

LINKS:

Read an NFPA Journal cover story from 2021 about the enormous population growth expected in Africa over the next decade, and the fire safety challenges—and opportunities—that these trends present.

Visit Samuel Nikoma’s Linkedin page where he writes on the challenges of fire safety in Africa and his ideas for building the resources to address them.

Since 2022, New York has experienced more than 800 fires sparked by lithium-ion batteries, leading to 30 deaths and more than 400 injuries. The sudden explosion of battery incidents led FDNY in 2023 to form the Lithium-Ion Task Force, a specialized unit dedicated to addressing the growing threat of fires caused by batteries, particularly those used in e-bikes and e-scooters.
Today on the podcast, we talk to John Orlando, the FDNY fire marshal who led the Lithium-Ion Task Force until recently. We chat about the causes and scope of New York City’s battery problems, the work of the task force, and how other departments and jurisdictions can work together to achieve similar results, even without FDNY’s considerable resources.

LINKS:

• See FDNY videos, campaign resources, regulations and more related to lithium-ion batteries
• See NFPA resources related to lithium-ion batteries
• Read NFPA Journal articles on:
  • The growing concern about lithium-ion consumer products in homes;
  • The copious amounts of research happening now to better understand and mitigate battery hazards;
  • The growing concerns about the fire safety of e-bikes and other micro-mobility devices;
  • The lessons from the Surprise, Arizona energy storage system explosion.