May 15, 2024 • 53 mins
Discover the transformative world of fire investigation as NFPA expert Bob Duvall takes us on a journey from the analog days to the digital revolution in our latest podcast episode.
Robert Duval | LinkedIn
NFPA | The National Fire Protection Association
Bob's extensive experience, knowledge and skill set unveils the critical role that learning from past tragedies plays in shaping future fire safety practices.
Tune in and gain unparalleled insights into how the gritty realities of fire disasters, from nightclubs to natural landscapes, inform the creation of life-saving codes and the profound connections forged between professionals in the face of adversity.
Bob's narratives on the World Trade Center disaster and the lessons from the deadly Station nightclub fires highlight the necessity of evolving technology and collaboration in documenting and analyzing fire scenes.
This episode is a poignant reminder of the diligence and proactive measures required to enhance safety in public assembly areas and the ongoing impact of such events on regulation and emergency management.
Bob also casts light on the future of fire safety, emphasizing the importance of information sharing and the NFPA's global influence in empowering professionals.
We discuss the exciting potential of AI and virtual reality in the field, as well as the pressing concerns surrounding lithium-ion batteries and building fires during construction.
This conversation is indispensable for those passionate about the convergence of technology, education, and fire safety, offering a wealth of knowledge for newcomers and seasoned professionals alike.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and episode after episode, we'll
attempt to excavate the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Welcome to CSI on Fire, yourfire investigation podcast.
(00:27):
I've got a fantastic guest onthis week, robert Duvall from
the US.
Welcome to the podcast, thankyou.
Thank you for having me, mike.
I've been given permission tocall you Bob, so I'm going to
call you Bob from now on.
That's great.
It's the first time we've met.
Never met before.
We met sort of Ken Burrows wason the podcast a few weeks ago.
Kindly put us in touch togetherand you've got some fantastic
background and skills.
(00:47):
But as I do on every guest, bob, just take me through your
history, take me through howyou've ended up from start to
finish on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, I started with NFPA in 1997.
I came over from FM Global Atthe time it was Factory Mutual
engineering started as one ofthe two fire investigators at
NFPA and over time I became thefire investigator as staff
changes and such, and I did thatfor several years before taking
(01:16):
on the additionalresponsibilities of a regional
director which serves as a pointof contact to states in your
region.
So I have the eight Northeaststates in the US, from Maine to
New Jersey, the New Englandstates in New York and New
Jersey, and I serve as the pointof contact for state agencies,
whether it's a fire marshal'soffice, a fire department or
(01:39):
just design professionals,building officials, facility
managers and such, to get themwhat they need from NFPA.
Whether they have a codequestion, I can get them to the
people that oversee the codes orget them an answer, or get them
to someone that can give theman answer.
If they're interested intraining, I can get them a line
on setting up some training orquestions on how do I get this
(02:00):
particular code book or how do Ihave access to this and so on.
We're that conduit as regionaldirectors and there's several of
us in the United States andthere's one in the country of
Canada and then we have othersaround the world, but they're
much more global when you getoutside of the US and outside of
North America.
But that's the regionaldirector's part of it.
As the backtrack now, as thefire investigator with NFPA the
(02:25):
name fire investigator is a bitof a misnomer because we don't
have authority to do origin andcause.
We don't have jurisdiction.
We're a nonprofit that developscodes and standards and public
safety and fire safety messagingand training and things such as
that.
We're not an entity that hasany type of jurisdiction and
(02:46):
things such as that.
We're not an entity that hasany type of jurisdiction.
People confuse us often withthe federal government because
there's national in our name,but we're not that.
In fire investigation with theNFPA it's more looking at the
lessons learned from aparticular incident.
For example, there's a majorfire with loss of life or
multi-million dollars inproperty and contents loss.
We go in to take a look at itand we have to be invited.
(03:07):
I can't just get on a plane andshow up and knock on the fire
chief's door and say, hello,here we are.
We have to be invited by ajurisdiction that has
involvement in that fire.
We get there and we startlooking at what caused the fire
to do what it did devour theentire building.
And if there were loss of life,whether it's firefighters or
civilians, what led to that?
(03:27):
Were they cut off from exiting?
Was the fire spread so rapidthat they couldn't get out?
Was there a problem withnotification fire alarm type
stuff?
Was the building sprinklered?
Should it have been sprinklered?
Things such as that.
And then in the past, when Istarted in the 90s, we would
write a standalone report onthat incident, and it was often
(03:48):
extremely detailed the incidentitself, how the fire service
responded to it, the aftermath.
We would comment on the originand cause, if it had been found,
but only from the basis of whatthe jurisdiction found.
So we would say theinvestigators from the state
fire marshal's office haveindicated that the fire started
due to a faulty electricaldevice and such and such.
(04:09):
We don't have any part in thatinvestigation.
So then the other part of thereport would be if the codes had
been in place, is there a needto do something with the code?
Do we need to address somethingthat hasn't been addressed in
the past?
Was it because of newtechnology that wasn't addressed
in the code, for example andthings like that.
(04:29):
We would release the reportAgain I'm going to date myself,
but it used to be black andwhite on paper and then we would
morphed into digital copieswhich were emailable or
downloadable or what have you.
And now, from that format, ourreports or our takeaways from
these incidents will be anarticle in our NFPA journal or a
(04:52):
piece on our website orpresentations that we give to an
audience based on the fire.
That's how we get the word out.
It's still the same audience.
It's just that we've kind ofgone from stone tablets through
to now it's digital.
It's quicker and easier to justput a piece together for the
website and then create apresentation to go out on a road
(05:14):
and speak to constituents andstakeholders in the field.
That's kind of my career atNFPA.
I'm going on 27 years there now.
It's kind of started that Now Ido both now at the same time
and the regional director'sportion takes maybe 70% of my
time and 30% is doing fireinvestigation.
So I kind of balance that as Igo forward.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I think you've got an engineering background, is that
right?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, I graduated from Northeastern University,
which is located in Boston, witha degree in mechanical
engineering technology.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Gotcha gotcha and you mentioned FM Global there.
It's a vague recollection forme, but I think you used to
produce a little red bookletthat had fire investigation on
it, and that was actually myfirst ever little guide.
It was a tiny little bookletand it was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
There was fire investigation.
There was sprinkler systems,which was great for inspectors
to have it in their pocket or intheir clipboard.
They did a few others and NFPAhad done a bunch as well.
A lot of on the electrical sidetoo.
But yeah, that was a thingbefore apps on your phone You'd
have a little pocket guide inyour briefcase or whatever.
But FM gave me a greatbackground because I was doing
(06:20):
inspections and on the insuranceside.
So it was going into insuredsproperties looking for hazards,
looking for they were doingconstruction.
I'd follow the constructionalong to make sure things were
safe while they were doing itand review plans for sprinkler
systems and designs and barriersand firewalls and such.
It was a great background.
It really set me up for what Iwas doing at NFPA, so it gave me
(06:43):
a great foundation when I wentto NFPA.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wow, Okay, I was going to say about what you
mentioned about NFPA do you everget?
Because it strikes me you're anadvisory and you're obviously
for fire protection and fire toprevent fires, but do you ever
get caught to court?
Is that something that happens?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Our investigators have in the past.
In some of the major incidentsthat they have investigated,
like Beverly Hills Supper Club,mgm Grand hotel, casino fires,
things such as that Our fileshave been brought into court
more from a discovery standpoint.
The attorneys want to seewhat's out there.
But we're really careful to bein an advisory role when we go
(07:19):
out or tell a story like areporter would more than delve
into it.
I mean, we do get into thedetails, the engineering details
and data, but in today'ssociety now, one misstep or one
wrong word, next thing you knowsomebody says, oh, we're going
to bring you to court and seewhat.
So we're very careful not to getinvolved in that when we don't
(07:39):
have to.
We're telling a story more thanwagging a finger and telling
somebody oh, you should havedone this, or smoking in bed is
bad things such as that.
But in the past we have beenand then at the most now the
courts will ask to see our filesand they get their photographs
and they get our notes andanything else that we've done.
But it's not where it was wayback in the day, where you'd sit
(08:01):
for a deposition for threehours and so forth.
Sure.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Okay, all right, good , and obviously NFPA 921 is
obviously the kind of Bible, thetextbook for fire
investigations.
Certainly it's constantlyreferred to and obviously if you
want to be a certified fireinvestigator with IWAI even
National Association of FireInvestigation they're all using
NFPA 921.
And I think the new additionsliterally just come out.
So do you have much to do withthat?
(08:24):
Do you have updating that?
Are you sitting on anycommittees or anything?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
No, there are like 400 people in the world that
can't participate in the NFPAprocess and they're the
employees from NFPA.
I don't oversee the committee.
That is another gentlemanwithin NFPA.
I help him in the field,getting the word out, doing
presentations on the latestadditions and things like that,
but he oversees the committeeand the members and task groups
and things like that.
You are correct, the newedition has just come out.
As a matter of fact, I'mwaiting for my copy.
(08:53):
It's supposed to be deliveredsometime this week.
I still get them in paper justto have as a reference, in
addition to our digital platform.
But it has just come out and,just like every previous edition
, the committee thinks long andhard about what content is going
to be in there, what's changed,what's updated, what's removed
because it's obsolete and such.
When you do get the new copy orreview the new copy, just go to
(09:17):
the front of the book and lookunder scope and origin and
development, read thoseparagraphs and if you go to the
very bottom of that section inthe front of the book, it'll
tell you what's changed orwhat's new in this edition and
then, when you go into theactual text, you can see the
markers what's new, what'schanged in the margins?
Anything with a little N in themargin is new.
(09:38):
Anything that's shaded has beenchanged.
Those have been in place for awhile.
They're constantly working onthat document, like any other
NFPA document in a cycle, butit's to keep up with the
technology.
That's the biggest thing andwhat they're finding in the
field, what the investigatorsare dealing with in the field,
what they're dealing with in thecourt system and just bringing
in what the folks on thecommittee are seeing in the
(10:01):
field.
These are all practitioners inone form or another and what
they see in their field andspeak and get spoken to by their
colleagues and say, hey, I'mfinding this in the field.
I'll use an example.
Several editions ago theystarted talking about digital
photography.
We all kind of take that forgranted.
Now we have it on our phone.
We just don't hesitate to takepictures.
(10:21):
But previous I can't put anactual time on it but digital
photography was not allowed inthe court.
You had to produce an actualI'll call it a paper photograph
and you had to have your log andwhere it was developed and the
chain of custody, and all ofthat because they didn't know
enough about digital photographyand people were afraid it could
be altered and so forth.
(10:42):
But as soon as people becameaware of metadata, which is all
of that data behind thephotograph on when it was taken,
where it was taken, what timeit was taken, what direction you
were pointing in when you tookit, and all of those things,
then you could prove that thepicture was as taken on this day
, at this time at this location,and it wasn't altered.
They began to bring in digitalphotography into the document as
(11:05):
it came into the court systemand as it became a part of the
fire investigations toolbox.
Now it's an accepted practice,as long as you follow the
procedure, so you can vouch forall of the photography that you
take, including mistakenphotographs with your thumb over
the lens or whatever.
You still have to verify yeah,I took this photograph.
(11:26):
This is why the numbers on myevidence list go from 12 to 15,
because 13 and 14 are blurryphotos because I had my thumb
over the lens or something.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Things like that.
So that's an example.
Wildfire investigation wasanother big thing that, over the
last couple of editions, hasbecome a bigger and bigger part
of the document.
Big thing that over the lastcouple of editions, has become a
bigger and bigger part of thedocument.
These fires are occurring allover the world in bigger and
bigger sizes and causing moreand more property damage.
Everyone is having them.
Australia's had some terribleones and in Europe, in very
(11:56):
densely populated areas inEurope, you had a terrible one
in Hawaii, didn't you recently?
Yep, hawaii, california, theMidwest Texas is suffering right
now in the panhandle section oftheir state.
Canada has had some terriblefires and some of them are still
burning.
They're smoldering underneaththe snow cover and I read
something this week where now,as the snow begins to melt,
(12:17):
these fires, they're going tocome back to life in these areas
and they have to account forall of these zombie fires
they're calling them.
But these fires have to beinvestigated as well and it's
kind of a different way to goabout it.
While you're still followingthe scientific method, you don't
have some of the markers thatyou would have in a structural
fire or an automobile or amachine fire.
There's a different avenue toapproach, but that's become a
(12:40):
bigger part of the document aswell in the past couple of
editions.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, on the Wildfield I think I've got a
couple of guys coming on thatsee, in Wildfield we don't
really suffer.
Obviously I'm from the UK wedon't really suffer a great deal
.
We have Heath fires and bitsand pieces, but nothing to the
extent.
But we did this last year Ithink there was one that took
out quite a lot of houses.
But coming back to the wet film, I mean I started my career as
(13:05):
a CSI in wet photography and weadopted digital in about 2005.
You're absolutely right, Ithink in a lot of ways digital
is more robust than wet filmbecause it gives you that
metadata, you know, it gives youtime and GPS and all that good
stuff, whereas wet film, it tooka little bit of while to get
over that mindset and, as yousaid, the kind of practices that
you had to include burning.
(13:26):
While we still burn three orfour discs one's always kept as
an original in case anyallegation of tampering that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Good, good.
I mean you've had a fantasticcareer, bob.
And just one thing before.
I guess you're always welcomeif you're invited.
If you don't go without aninvite, you're always a face
that's welcomed.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah Well, you don't want to surprise anyone on their
worst day If they've had arather large fire.
The last thing you want to dois go up and tap someone on the
shoulder and say, hey, I'm withthe NFPA, I'm here to help and
we have a large network ofconnections.
A lot of these fire servicefolks and marshals and things
participate in our process,either through training or the
code committee process orcomment proposal parts.
(14:04):
We have a network and if wedon't have a person, we know a
person who knows the person incharge there or we can get some
route to the authority that'soverseeing the incident and we
just send a simple call or asimple email and say if you need
any assistance, we're reallyinterested in this fire.
Is there any way we could talkto you, speak to you?
And even if it's just a phonecall or a quick virtual meeting,
(14:27):
they say no, we want you tocome out here and look at this.
This is really significant.
We want you to come out and seethis.
We will and we'll do the best wecan to get out there as soon as
we can and document what we canphotographs and interviews and
just get the lay of the land andthen come back and then
(14:47):
continue that follow-up and seewhere this fits.
Does it become an article inour NFPA journal?
Is it a presentation?
Or, in some cases, if theincident is of a certain
magnitude, we'll just reportback to the committee that has
that kind of jurisdiction say, ahealthcare fire.
We'll go to NFPA 101 or NFPA 99committee and say I've got a
short presentation.
This fire occurred in this townand this is what the result was.
(15:09):
I just wanted to give you guysthe details right from the fire
department, right from the city,right from whoever was
assisting us, and the committeegets it firsthand.
They're not having to filterthrough media stories and
hearsay, through people on theinternet and all kinds of things
.
They get it directly from thesource.
And that means a lot to thembecause then they can make their
(15:31):
own decisions based on that andthen they can establish a back
and forth.
Hey, I've got a question forthe facility manager at that
clinic.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Okay, I'll let you see if you can speak to you and
we can put the two of themtogether and provide that sort
of service as well, gotcha, andI think there's obviously a
level of I guess it's you canbring additional resources and
there's a level of trust therebecause you're not sitting in
judgment.
In effect, it's you agreeingwith whatever the state marshal
is saying, and I think youfocused on something that I
think is really important thereas well is that it's a fairly
(15:58):
small world fire investigation,and if you're in one area you
tend to bump into the same fireinvestigators, whether they be
from private or public, on aconstant, and it's always nice
that you know them before thatyou've met before, even if it's
for a cup of coffee or whatever.
Great, fantastic.
Let's move on, really, bob, tosome of the cases that you've
dealt with.
I know you've probably dealtwith the biggest case in the
world and certainly a second onewhich is very well known within
(16:21):
the fire investigationcommunity, so tell us about some
of the cases that you've beeninvolved with.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
As we were speaking before we came on the two
largest ones that I've beeninvolved with at NFPA.
One of them is not necessarilya fire investigation, but we got
involved because NFPA was askedto participate, and then the
other one was a fireinvestigation.
We'll talk about the WorldTrade Center bombings or
disaster first.
After that happened, you speakof small world.
I was at a fire investigationconference in Rhode Island the
(16:48):
morning of September 11th andall of the folks that were there
are all fire police or somesort of public servant, and
we're all huddled around TVs andthis is back in the day of
beepers and pagers andeveryone's pagers are going off
and getting asked to come backto town and so on.
So we watched the better partof the morning in a hotel room
on the television and we allbroke up and went back and
(17:12):
started gathering as muchinformation as we could and so
on.
And over the course of the nextcouple of days we were asked
FEMA, the Federal EmergencyManagement Association in the US
, put together a team ofstructural and fire protection
people to go and look at thesite in a data gathering form
(17:33):
more than anything else.
The committee was probablymaybe 18 or 20 people from
various backgrounds.
You had structural engineers,you had fire protection
engineers, you had civilengineers, you had chemical
engineers.
I represented NFPA on the codeside.
So I was on both sides of thefence.
I had the structural stuff andthe design for egress and such
(17:56):
and the fire protection sidesprinklers and fire pumps and
things and I was one of the fewon the committee that had a fire
service background as well.
So in cases I ended up beingthe translator or the liaison
between the committee membersand FDNY.
I was able to kind of translateback and forth as we were
talking or I had a gut feelingthis was a good idea to talk to
(18:19):
this person and not that person,and so on and not that person
and so on.
So we went down.
That's not far from my homehere in Connecticut.
So I took the train down and wemet in one evening.
We all got together and we hadour marching orders of what we
were going to do.
We went down to the site.
We had to get checked in, wehad to get credentials and so on
, and then we broke into groupsand we all took certain sections
(18:40):
.
The first days was just gettingthe scope of the magnitude,
because the recovery was stillgoing on, they were still
putting fires out, they werestill surveying areas.
It was still basically in oneof the largest crime scenes in
the world.
We were tread lightly, we weregoing around and we each had
certain areas to look at.
So with our credentials we werekind of allowed to go pretty
(19:01):
much wherever we wanted.
My group ended up in the outsidebuildings.
So if you looked at the plotbefore, they've completely
rearranged it now with thememorial and the other buildings
that are there.
The two towers are in thecenter and around the perimeter
were the other buildings.
It was World Trade Center 3, 4,5, 6, and 7.
My group was looking at 5, 6,and 7.
(19:23):
I believe World Trade Centerthree was considered the hotel
Marriott, if I'm not mistaken.
We were looking at thesesmaller buildings.
They were low-rise buildings,six and seven stories, and then
World Trade Center seven was amuch bigger building.
It was another high-risebuilding.
We had access to thesebuildings.
We walked inside and we sawsome incredible sites of
structural steel that had justturned to taffy before it
(19:44):
hardened again.
Certain parts of the buildingstood while others collapsed,
and we took a tremendous amountof pictures and documented as
much as we possibly could.
Again, my fire servicebackground kicked in.
We would go through a door andI would wedge it open after we
went through and at one pointone of the engineers asked me
she goes why are you doing that?
And I says, if that door closesbehind us, we're going to have
(20:06):
to wave out a window and hopethat somebody can come and find
us, because if that door closeswe may not be able to get out to
the other side.
She goes oh, very good, wedgeall the doors you'd like between
now and the time we get out.
Wedge all the doors you'd likebetween now and the time we get
out.
Yeah, we spent time in that.
We took a long, hard look atbuilding seven, which is the one
that collapsed, late in theafternoon on that day and each
night we would get back togetherand huddle and discuss what we
(20:28):
found and kind of break up theassignments for the next day.
We spent over a week down there, every day going into the site,
coming back out, and then wegathered what we thought we
needed and we returned back toour offices and then began a
large group chat withcloud-based storage and we
shared all of our information.
We also went out to some of thelandfills where they were
(20:50):
taking the steel and we werelooking at steel while it was
out there and such.
From that came the preliminaryreport on the World Trade Center
, which became the basis for theNIST report that came out
several years later in multiplevolumes, which was much more
detailed information and domodeling and reverse engineering
(21:20):
based on photography anddamages and such.
How many gallons of fuel wereon the plane?
How hot was the fire in thisarea?
What damage was caused?
How many column lines weretaken out when the planes hit
things?
What caused the buildings tocollapse?
We did the legwork, thatpreliminary work that led to
that much more detailed report.
I still communicate with some ofthe people that were on that
committee with me.
We still have an email,friendship sort of thing, and I
(21:41):
still remember that.
I mean that's one of the mosttraumatic things in the
country's history and to be downthere.
And whenever I go back to NewYork City I'll go by places and
say, oh, I remember that westayed here or we walked by
there or that's where we caughtthe train.
I'll never forget thatexperience and I played an
extremely small role in thatcommittee's work.
I mean, there were people witha lot of letters after their
(22:02):
name on that committee, but theywere great people Cracker, jack
, engineers, stuff that I wouldnever even thought of.
They were just looking atthings going.
Yeah, this is what happenedhere, and everyone was working
together.
There were no egos, there wereno.
I'm going to do this, I'm goingto do that.
I want my name at the top ofthe list.
Everybody worked together,realizing that what their work
(22:22):
was going to mean.
Yeah, have an answer to somepeople on why this happened.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Really important stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
That was the trade center.
Well, the biggest fire of mytime at NFPA was the station
nightclub fire in Rhode Island,again not far from my home.
Here I'm getting a complex.
All these incidents arehappening within a couple hours
of my home base, that particularfire.
I was on my way to a conferencein Hong Kong of all places, and
(22:50):
I was going to speak there.
I had a stop in Chicago for apresentation there.
I had dinner the night beforewith a colleague and we were
both speaking at the conferencethe next morning.
So we said our goodbyes andwent back to the hotel.
And this was back in the daywhere you had to have an
international cell phone.
You had to have a phone thatwas set up for international
(23:11):
calling.
So I didn't have my usual cellphone with me, I had an
international phone and I had itplugged in on the nightstand in
the hotel phone with me.
I had an international phoneand I had it plugged in on the
nightstand in the hotel and twopeople had the number my boss
and my wife.
The phone rings at like 4.30 inthe morning, five o'clock in
the morning in Chicago and theworst comes to mind oh,
(23:33):
something's wrong with the kidsSomething's happened.
So I fumble for the phone, Ianswer it and it's my boss.
So I immediately say okay, thefamily's okay, what's up.
And all he said to me was Ireally hate to bother you this
early, but turn the televisionon.
And that's what he said.
And I'm like what do you mean?
He goes no, just turn the TV on.
So of course I put the TV on.
He says just go to any one ofthe news channels.
So I put on one of the 24 hournews channels and there it was.
(23:54):
And I says, oh my God.
I says I know where.
That is, not the club itself,but I know that city, that town.
He says we're getting wordsthat there's maybe upwards of a
hundred people killed.
He says how soon can you getback?
And I said well, I got a flightthis afternoon at four o'clock
to go to Hong Kong.
And he goes we'll take care ofthat.
We're going to get you on aflight back here and land.
(24:16):
The airport is 20 minutes fromwhere the fire was.
He says can you get somebody tomeet you at the airport with
your cameras and your uniform,which was a BDU type thing or
winter jacket, because it wasFebruary and such.
I says yeah, I can contact myfamily and they can meet me at
the airport.
Our office worked out thearrangements.
I called my colleague who I haddinner with the night before,
(24:37):
who, who happened to work forNIST, and he had heard the same
thing on the news and he saidask the marshal in Rhode Island
if he wants us to come in andhelp him with a model of the
fire.
And I said absolutely.
So I got on a plane.
I'm scribbling notes andeverything on the plane, trying
to get my head around this.
I land, my family meets me atthe airport, I do a trade-off.
(24:57):
I hand them my suitcase fromwhat was going to be a week's
worth of clothes in Hong Kong.
They hand me a suitcase full ofwork clothes and my cameras and
I got in my pickup truck and Idrove to the fire scene and my
family drove home with all mystuff from my trip.
So I got there and I had calledthe assistant state fire marshal
and he knew I was coming.
He says get as close as you canand I'll meet you in front of
(25:19):
the building.
So I found a parking spot.
This is in a very tightneighborhood.
I found a parking spot andhoping I wasn't going to get a
ticket or get towed.
And I grabbed my stuff and Iwalked down and I met him and it
was in the parking lot in frontof the club and I just remember
looking over his shoulder as hecame up to see me and I
couldn't be more surprised ashow small the footprint of the
(25:41):
building was and thinking ahundred people died in this
small building.
And then the magnitude of itwas, yes, they had 400 people in
that building and a hundred ofthem weren't able to get out and
another 200 or some wereinjured in the event of trying
to get out.
So I got a chance to walk aroundand meet people and kind of get
a lay of the land and I metsome folks from the ATF that was
(26:04):
already there, the Bostonoffice had their people down
there assisting and Rhode Islandput out an all call for fire
marshals and detectives from thestate police and local police
departments.
They were doing interviews andsuch and investigators were
sifting already no-transcript.
(26:48):
And he was getting ready toleave when the lead, the main
act, came on and he stayed forthat.
His whole intent was the firstminute or two and then he was
going to make his way out and goback to the studio and do his
editing and things and he caughtone of the most tragic fire
scenes in the world on video.
Our whole thing from that pointwas why didn't everybody get
(27:09):
out?
Was the exiting designedproperly?
What led to the crowd crush andthings?
The place did not havesprinkler protection.
How come it didn't havesprinkler protection?
What led to that decision orlack of a decision and so forth?
To kind of fast forward, I metthe fire marshal that night.
He said absolutely to NIST'srequest to come in.
Nist came in the next day.
(27:30):
They flew in and landed thenext day, got all of their data
over the next couple of days andtheir modeling and their
recreation is still available onthe web.
They did a side-by-sidesprinkler to not sprinkler and
the timeline is almost exact towhat the video shows as far as
fire spread without sprinklersversus fire spread with
sprinklers.
(27:50):
That same timeframe, I believe.
Two sprinklers went off withina minute and it basically would
have made for a bunch of wetpatrons but they wouldn't have
been fatalities.
There would have been injuriesbut no fatalities and
unsprinkled within a minute anda half, the entire inside of
that club was untenable both intemperature and carbon monoxide.
Again, to fast forward a littlebit further, the state looked
(28:13):
inward quite a bit and said weneed to make some changes in our
fire code.
They looked to us again andsaid what can you guys do to
help?
And we helped them adopt NFPA 1and NFPA 101 with some
amendments state-centricamendments and that became their
fire code going forward, and ithas been ever since.
The silver lining in thisterrible tragedy is that they
(28:36):
made some changes which havemost likely saved lives over the
years since that fire.
And now they are very sensitiveabout areas of public assembly,
whether it's nightclubs orarenas or anything else, and any
marshal in Rhode Island.
You talk to it and they saywhenever we do a place of
assembly, this is always in theback of our mind.
(28:56):
I don't want this to becomeanother nightclub fire that
kills dozens of people.
While that was a tragedy ofepic proportion, there was still
a small silver lining that cameout of it and we had a part of
it.
The team at NFPA had a part ofit.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
We should probably say that it was started by
Pyrotechnics, wasn't it from theband?
And it obviously caught some ofthe linings and bits and pieces
that was there.
And I've watched the footageand I've seen some things.
I've seen some terrible things,but that footage is really
harrowing because it just keepsrecording while people are
trying to obviously still getout and, yeah, it's pretty
harrowing.
But I see there was only Ithink it was only last year late
(29:31):
last year, the iraq fire.
There was a wedding and verysimilar pyrotechnics again
catching stuff, and so, yeah, itcould, yeah, it could still
happen.
It still does happen.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Within a year of the fire.
I can remember it was aroundChristmas time because I was on
break and I was just driving inmy vehicle running errands and
the phone rang and it was thestate fire marshal in Rhode
Island who was about ready toretire.
If I remember correctly, it waslike a Saturday morning.
So it was like oh, what is hecalling for?
It's not business, whatever.
And he says did you see theterrible fire that happened?
(30:03):
I believe it was in the MiddleEast, yeah, it was Iraq, I think
Not the wedding fire.
This was a year after thestation club fire.
I don't remember exactly whereit was.
No, it was in South America, Ibelieve.
And he says another nightclubpyrotechnics, combustible finish
inside, overcrowding, and theykilled dozens of people.
And he goes when are we goingto learn our lesson?
And it was like, yeah, the moreyou get out in front of people
(30:27):
and say hey, you've got toprevent this from happening,
you've got to put sprinklers,you've got to design the exiting
to get people out, you've gotto do this, this and this.
Right up until last year, awedding venue with combustible
streamers hanging from theceiling, they're shooting off
sparklers or whatever it was atthat wedding venue.
They didn't have the exitingdesigned for anywhere near the
amount of people that were inthere.
They killed dozens of people.
(30:47):
We continue to fight the goodfight, but there's these cases
that slip through the cracks.
But it's been said, and one ofthe overarching mantras in fire
protection and building safetyprotection protection is if we
will learn one thing fromhistory, is that we don't learn
from history.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what's happening.
The folks have a short memorywhen it comes to things like
(31:08):
that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, exactly, but I think that's why I'm quite keen
on this podcast to haverepresentatives from NFPA,
because you're not just thestandards for us as fire
investigators, you offerstandards across the board in
terms of building codes and bitsand pieces and adoption of
those, and obviously we had Kenon and the spreading of the word
is all good, great.
I just picked up on somethingyou said.
I know you're a volunteerfirefighter and do you think
(31:31):
that makes you a better fireinvestigator, being a
firefighter as well?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I don't want to say been there, done that and sound
like I've been there and donethat, but it gives you a little
bit more background.
Most of the investigators thatI know, especially on the public
side, whether they're on thepolice side or on the fire side
in their branch where they work,are firefighters or have been
at one point or another.
Even the law enforcement folks.
While they can't be careerfirefighters because they're
(31:55):
career police officers, they maybe volunteers in their
community or they served as afirefighter before they became a
police officer or detective.
So it gives you a little bit ofbackground.
I mean, it gives you a step up,because you've already seen
certain things or you have anidea of how things develop in a
fire.
Either you've seen it firsthandwhile you were crawling in with
(32:15):
a hose line or to do a search,or you've seen it in a training
fire, or you've set up atraining fire to do certain
things, like a flashoversimulator.
Now you can actually createflashovers in a compartment
where it's relatively safe to doand you can watch this.
People that haven't beenexposed to that often will not
have a idea on the magnitude orthe power or the speed of how
(32:39):
certain things will happen in afire.
If you go all the way to thecivilian side, most civilians
get their information on firesfrom TV and movies and things
like that, where it's beenedited, so the smoke isn't there
so you can see the stars' facesand hear the stars and such or
action movies.
The guy pulls the fire alarmand all the sprinklers go off in
(33:00):
the building to cover theirescape.
So they have that backgroundand it's like no, that's not
correct.
We have to educate people as wego, both as investigators and as
public fire safety educators.
No, all the sprinklers aren'tgoing to go off.
Or you have two minutes to exityour home.
If you have a fire, you don'thave 30 minutes like you see on
television and a fire starts atthe beginning of the show and
(33:22):
before 30 minutes is up theyfinally get out and whatever.
Having a little background ishelpful from that perspective.
Or you can kind of go back inyour head and say yeah, I've
seen this before, just likeinvestigators do.
They say yeah, I've had asimilar case to this, and the
slides in your head start goingyep, okay, this is what happened
in this case.
It's the same with having afire background.
(33:42):
You say, I fought a fire thatlooked like this or was like
this or involved something likethis.
So it gives you a little bit ofbackground life experience to
fall back on as an investor.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, definitely.
I like to sort of say, as yousaid, the scientific interpreter
.
Really, if you know how to putout a fire, if you understand
fire behavior and you know spraypatterns and gas cooling and
that kind of stuff and you'relooking at a clean burn on the
top, is that a clean burn or isthat gas cooling?
And it's fairly obvious if youknow.
But it's just that kind ofknowledge.
And before I came to RiyadhI've reviewed a number of
(34:11):
criminal cases and I rememberbriefing back on one of those
criminal cases and you've gotthe typical kind of lit
cigarette into a pool ofignitable liquid nonsense.
It is amazing how much we callit the CSI effect in our world.
People expect it much quicker.
You can do things that youcan't necessarily do, but it's
amazing.
I showed a couple of videosabout ignitable liquids and the
(34:31):
question was about the burnpatterns to individuals in this
particular case.
And just showing a few videosto the senior investigating
officer, just showing factualvideos as opposed to TV movies.
We shouldn't use backdraft as areference.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I'm banging on with you there, the fire station,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah, exactly, Exactly Fantastic.
That's been brilliant.
What's kind of next for you?
What's your daily job?
Look like to be honest, Bob.
What do you do on a daily basis?
How's it pan out?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, if I'm not traveling, if I'm not doing a
presentation or doing aninvestigation or a follow-up,
the first thing I do when I getup is I start looking at the
newswire for major incidentsthat may have happened overnight
, check my phone if anybody hadcontacted me from around the
world, network the friends andcolleagues and say, hey, there
was a terrible fire in such andsuch.
In most cases they'll send youa link to a news story.
(35:19):
I'll do some general searches.
I've got a lot of differentthings that end up in my email
box in the morning and I'll lookthrough and say, oh, okay, that
one looks interesting or thatone, and I'll put together a
summary and share it with thefolks at NFPA.
And it's always kind ofcross-discipline stuff.
There'll be stuff about storage, there'll be stuff about
residential, there may be alarmtype stuff and fire suppression
(35:42):
or fire service related thingsand people read it and it's just
like a newsletter.
They say, oh, could you get memore information on this?
So could you put me in contactwith someone from this fire?
I have a question?
And say, all right, I'm goingto start making phone calls.
Or if it's out of my region,I'll contact the regional person
(36:06):
for that area, saying do youhave a contact at the state fire
marshal or the city metro firedepartment there that we could
ask if it's okay if we ask morequestions, or would you like us
to come out?
That's how that starts.
That's usually the beginning ofthe day and then from there
it's whatever's going on.
Is there something I'mpreparing for a presentation or
preparing to go and meet withassociations, whether it's
marshals, chiefs, buildingofficials, design professionals
(36:29):
and such?
Do we set up public educationmeetings or information
testifying or providingtestimony for legislation that's
coming up that supports ourdocuments or may not?
So we can submit something inopposition of that and things
such as that.
Most of it is networking andworking, answering questions
that come in and keeping trackof things going on in your
(36:51):
region.
You don't want to be surprisedto have somebody call you saying
, hey, they passed a bill inthis state to do this and you
didn't know anything about it.
You could have either helpedprevent it or help support it or
, if it got shot down or hadyour support, maybe would have
pushed it over the finish line,things like that.
It's constantly scanning forinformation and taking
(37:12):
information in and gettinginformation back out again to
keep all of the stakeholders inyour region advised and making
them want to come to NFPA as ago-to source for information.
The phone will ring and say Bob, I'm at my wit's end, I can't
find anything on this.
Could you help me?
And we'll say, okay, let melook and see where that is, or
(37:33):
what code addresses that, or ifwe even have something on that.
And if we don't, maybe somebodyin our research area says yes,
we're working on research, or Iknow of research that's in that
particular arena, and we can putthe two people together and get
some information going back andforth.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean obviously I met Ken here in
Riyadh.
He came to a conference that wewere running here at the Nate
Farrow University.
Is it a global opportunity?
Could anyone around the worldsort of get in contact with an
FPA and say hey, help us out out.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, absolutely, we're more concentrated in North
America because that's our homebase, but we have
representatives around the world, such as Ken out in the Middle
East.
We have folks in South Americaand Europe and such.
And when in doubt you justreach out and you just go to the
website and send a comment in.
Or there's NFPA Exchange, whichis kind of an engineering
bulletin board, blog-based placewhere you could place a
question.
It doesn't cost anything tojoin, you just got to create a
(38:27):
profile.
There's NFPA Network, whichagain, it's a newsletter type
thing and you can choose theinformation that comes to you.
So if you're not interested inwildfire, you don't check that
box.
But you can get building andlife safety, fire service and
things, and the newsletter comesout once a week, once every
other week and with information,and it's all free.
You can click on it and getmore information or what have
(38:49):
you.
There's conduit, there's ways toget back and forth, but when in
doubt there's a contact usthing on the website.
You can look for someone thatmay fit your bill or just reach
out to an individual close toyou or say hey, I've got a
question.
Who do I speak to at NFPA onthis, and if I'm not the person,
because I'll get these randomphone calls about oh, what about
this?
(39:10):
And say, well, I'm not theperson to speak to on that, but
let me take your name and numberor send me an email and I'll
pass it along to the person thatcan help you.
The old adage is you don't haveto know everything, you just
have to know where you can findit, and that's pretty much what
it boils down to.
I can't possibly put all ofthat information here, but if
you know where to find it or whocan help you with it, then
(39:30):
that's half the battle, rightthere.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
We just say the NFPA exchange and network and we'll
put that on the podcast, thelink, when the show goes out, if
that's okay.
I think you're absolutely rightand it seems to be a very
constant message is that acrossall the FIs I've spoke to, I
would say 99.9% of them, If youdon't know, there's no shame in
not knowing.
It's just making sure that youfind the information, you can
pass it on.
You can't be an expert.
(39:53):
I know nothing about wildfires.
In fact, I was asked somequestions about wildfires and
it's kind of like nah, it's kindof witchcraft to me.
That's really important, Ithink, to say If you had
anything, if I'm a new FI, as Iam trying to develop and learn,
is there anything you would top,tips or tricks or anything that
you've really learned over theyear that you kind of could
think about bring to the table?
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Well, a couple of things.
Get yourself a mentor.
It doesn't have to be formallytype thing, but rely on people
that have been there and donethat and listen to them.
Don't try to one-up them sayingoh, we had this the other day.
And listen to them and let themgive you or pass along their
experience.
It's just like any other careerfield you want to talk to the
(40:34):
people that have been therebefore you.
And then, when you've got agood background like that,
you've been to some fires,you've been to some scenes,
you've talked to some people,you've seen some things, you've
made mistakes.
We've all done that.
We've all said, oh no, I thinkit started over here.
And then everything else pointsto across the room.
And then the other thing isembrace the technology.
We joked about digitalphotography 20 years ago or
(40:59):
maybe 30 years ago.
If somebody told you that a dogwas going to be able to tell you
where accelerant had beenpoured at a fire, you would have
said what kind of black magicis that?
Now, most agencies that havethat resource rely on it and it
is very accurate.
If the dog is handled properlyand the evidence is handled
properly and documented, a lotof people, a lot of agencies
(41:20):
rely on this now and it's beenproven again and again and again
in court that, yes, this dog'snose is extremely accurate and,
as long as it's backed up, youtake the sample to the lab and
you say, yep, this is anignitable liquid and so on.
But without that you'd betaking samples of every inch of
carpet in a building and the labwould finally have to tell you
to stop.
We can't possibly test all ofthis and the lab would finally
(41:41):
have to tell you to stop.
We can't possibly test all ofthis.
That sort of thing.
Embrace it.
And now modeling stuff that'sout there now, whether it's just
a 3D model of your buildingthat helps make that evidence.
If you're making demonstrativeevidence to a jury or to a
client and say this is whathappened here, before it was a
line sketch on graph paper.
Now you can do 3D modeling, youcan roll the building around,
(42:07):
you can do all kinds of things.
And then the fire dynamicsmodeling that you can do.
Or pointing to research embracethe research that's out there,
all of these old wives talesabout spalled concrete and
crazed glass and all of thesethings.
Now there's research to back upventilation profiles, neutral
planes, all of these things.
It's all research based.
It's not well.
Mike said he saw a fire oncethat did this.
Okay, that's good, that's onefire in the history of fire.
(42:31):
But if you can take researchbased things and have it backed
up in science, look for that.
And that has gone light speedin the last 10 years.
I mean I can remember when firemodeling first came out you
needed to get so much data andthe computer needed to be the
size of a small house to processall of that data and then you
would get a line drawing withsome really colorful graphics on
(42:54):
temperatures and things.
And now the processing speedand size and power is such you
can just crunch some numbers andthen play around with it and
say I'm going to make it do whatit did in this case and move
around, and that will help proveyour point or disprove your
hypothesis and say no, it can'tpossibly have happened the way I
(43:14):
thought it did.
I got to go back to scratch andstart over again.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, yeah, and I think going back to like a more
basic one of the canine, the dogasset obviously does a massive
amount of work in a very shortperiod of time and helps you
kind of focus down and look atthat.
And you've got to bear in mindas well the context of that.
Not liquid, but what is theactual context of it?
Is it legitimate reason thereto have it there or not?
But I think on the firemodeling side and on the 3D kind
of stuff virtual sort ofmetaverse type stuff where you
(43:39):
can actually put yourself withinit and walk through it I've got
River coming on.
We've got virtual realitysoftware here that we put
students through on fireinvestigation.
But also on the modeling side,I think with AI they're going to
see another exponential sort ofleap.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Pretty, oh, absolutely.
That's the next step.
Vr is taking its role now intraining and education.
You put a person in a roomthat's on fire.
Home Fire Sprinkler Coalitionhas got that river platform
where you can do that withvirtual reality goggles.
And in training, fire trainingthis platform's out there, so
you're not necessarily doinglive burns all the time.
(44:13):
You can do shipboardfirefighting, for example.
It's very hard to do that inmany areas because you just
can't get the resources to do it.
You can do it virtually to helpbuild a base of people for
information, but that's comingand you have to embrace it.
You can't just say, no, I'm notgoing to do that, because it's
especially with the generationsthat are coming up that are
accustomed to it.
Kids that are in high schooland college now.
(44:35):
They're very accustomed to itand that's the way they want to
learn versus somebody in their40s and 50s and 60s.
That's like this is their firstexposure to it and they're like
, wow, this is some kind ofcrazy magic.
But yeah, you have to embracethat and use it where it fits
you, whether it's providing datato the jury to show them
something, or a class ofstudents, or proving or
(44:56):
disproving your hypothesis.
It's another avenue rather thanjust sticking to pen and paper.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, sure, and I think the important thing about
sort of the youth that's comingI mean I'm 52.
So both in the CSI and the FIworld in our world, is that they
don't know anything else thanthe scientific model.
They don't know anythingdifferent because we started in
the time when I say wet film,wet film, photography, like they
look at me as if I'm crazy.
They just don't know anydifferent, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
They've seen an old movie, where the person was in
the dark room and so on.
They have no idea, even thoughthe 35 millimeter digital
cameras look very similar.
I have a kit that looks verysimilar to the first one I had
when I came to NFPA.
The only difference is I don'thave to put a roll of film in
the dark or hide it under myjacket to put the roll in there
every 24 photographs.
The chip I have in the back ofthat camera.
(45:40):
I could take 5,000 photographsand I would have to forget to
download it because it says oh,that thing's not even close to
being full.
In the old days you snapped offa bunch of pictures in one
corner of the room and you tookthat rollout, put it in the case
, put it away and then went tohave it develop and we were at
fires where we would send aperson to the local department
store to buy a sleeve of filmand keeping track of all of that
(46:02):
.
Now everything's digital.
You can look at the pictureimmediately after you take it in
the screen in the back of thecamera and realize nope, that
wasn't quite right, or there's ashadow there, and then take
another one.
And that technology has justgone light speed since I started
doing this, and it's the ruleof the land.
Now, if you brought an actualpaper photograph into court
right now, they would probablygo what is this?
(46:23):
Where did you find this?
What museum did you find thisin?
But yeah, digital photography.
Now for the way you present itto a jury or to students or to
whoever is.
The way that you just create apresentation and put it up on a
projector or on a smart boardand show people.
This is what it is.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
I think with, like the AI and also these kind of
Google headset type things, youknow, I think we'll see a time
where, with the 3D scanning offire scenes and any other scene,
you can ask the jury to kind ofput on this headset and they
can be orientated around it, andit's a fantastic tool in terms
of EP electronic presentation ofevidence.
We did a little bit of that inBeirut for the UN.
They were able to see a livemodel and asked to see different
(47:03):
angles and bits and pieces.
The dutch police actually cameand scanned the whole scene for
us, which was kind of cuttingedge at the time.
But yeah, like you say, bringout a film.
I have to say, do you all knowwhat a film canister is?
And they're, like you know, getyou know, no idea so often
you'll see it.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
They'll pop up on the internet and somebody will take
a picture of the film canisterand they'll say does anybody
know what this is?
And I always default to thething I said that's where I put
my rubber gloves and my firegear.
Now you take a pair of rubbergloves that you'd wear in an EMS
call.
You fold them up in that filmcanister, you stick it in the
coat, the pocket and yourturnout coat and the gloves
don't get destroyed, and thenyou know what they are.
(47:38):
You feel for that littlecanister.
You pop the top, you put yourgloves on and you can go to work
, but people put coins in themor whatever.
Nobody uses that film anymore.
So there's all of these filmcanisters kicking around.
I've seen them in workshopswhere people will put little
nuts and bolts in them andthings Great, but nobody has any
idea what they were originallyused for.
And those days are gone.
They went by the wayside withdigital photography.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
And I think the great thing about not just digital,
but I sometimes use my iPhone,and the reason I do that is
because if I'm doing anelectrical distribution board or
something like that, I can markit up there and then I know
what's coming in, what's comingout, and that's also something
that I find really useful.
I'm a bit old school in termsof pen and paper and notes and
stuff, and I'm trying to getover to the iPad and doing
(48:20):
e-notes or something like thatas you go, but I'm a bit old
fashioned in that way.
We still like the old pen andpaper.
All right, thanks very much,bruce.
I mean, what's next for you?
What's coming up for you?
Have you got anything in thepipeline?
Any conferences, anything likethat?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Batteries, lithium ion batteries and battery energy
storage systems are theemerging technology that
everybody wants to know about,both on the fire side, the
safety side, designing systemsand so on.
We're very busy doingpresentations for stakeholders
in that realm.
We have a group of folks atNFPA that are constantly
gathering information, newinformation on what's incidents
(48:55):
that are happening in the fieldNew York City is an epicenter
for these fires on micromobility devices that are
catching fire in residentialproperties and such.
But we have a standard, nfpa855, which is stationary battery
energy storage systems, andit's gotten a lot of interest
because these installations aregoing in or being proposed in a
lot of areas and people are likeI don't know the first thing
(49:18):
about this, but all I know isthat I see a lot of these
batteries that are catching fireand doing this and doing that,
but they're kind of on two endsof the spectrum.
Your e-mobility stuff issmaller.
Batteries tend to be lessengineered and such, and then
the battery energy storagesystems are the very seriously
engineered design systems andsuch.
There's a lot of education goingon in fire service and people
(49:39):
are clamoring for information.
So we have a lot ofpresentations in the near future
on that and, believe it or not,we're still talking about
buildings under constructionhaving fires.
It seems to be a constant,steady flow of these things
around the world, wherebuildings are not quite fully
protected yet because they'rebeing constructed and a fire
starts either through anaccident, hot work, arson, and
(50:08):
the building burns, or issignificantly damaged because
all of the protection featureswhether it's static protection
in walls and design, firebarriers or sprinkler protection
or early detection on the alarmside and the building burns
because it wasn't finished yet.
We're educating people on thatas well.
You have to be vigilant.
You have to be on top of thissort of thing, prevent the
hazard before it happens orreduce the hazard if you do have
(50:29):
a situation, by keeping up withthese things while the
building's being constructed.
It's a terrible shame.
The building is 98% finishedand they hadn't turned the
sprinkler protection on.
They do a test of the emergencygenerator and the exhaust stack
sets a fire in a void spacewhere there's no detection, no
protection, and it burns theroof off of a building that was
going to be occupied in lessthan a month.
(50:50):
That's a typical story.
So that's another area thatwe're getting out in front of.
So batteries are a big thingwhere we're constantly out doing
information and presentations,and then buildings under
construction.
Nfpa 241 is the standard onthat.
That's another one.
So those are the two biggestthings I've got going looking
into the summer months.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Gotcha gotcha, and I think that's not just a US thing
, I mean in London, I know, andacross the globe, I think these
batteries lithium-ion batteriesbecause they've got so much
potential.
Once they go into thermalrunaway they're going to reach
ignition temperatures of allmaterials around them very
quickly and you've got thatflammable vapor cloud as well.
It's very easy to mix up.
I think there needs to be somesort of legislation around the
(51:29):
type of charger, that you can'tput a six volt charger into a
four volt battery and that kindof stuff so very easily done.
And it's about education aswell, a bit of public awareness.
There are dangers there andalso what we're seeing as well
as you might see, highly likelyseeing in the states as well is
that people are buying batteriesfrom cells individual cells and
then remarketing them,reselling them on ebay and other
(51:51):
market sellers are available.
But yeah, we're seeing a bit ofthat and obviously if they've
had damage before and there's areason why they're not working.
I had a electric bike it wasactually one of these dutch
bikes that has a big basket onthe front and a lady bought it
online market seller and thevery first time she charged it
it went off into thermal runawayand caused a fire, so you have
to be really careful, right?
(52:12):
Anyway, bob, it's beenabsolutely fantastic.
I really enjoyed our chat.
I don't want to stop, if I'mhonest, but it's been really
educational for me, reallyfantastic, and hopefully we'll
have you on again at some point,if that's okay.
And yeah, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yeah, I appreciate setting this whole thing up
being in so eight hours aparttime zone wise and being able to
set this up.
It worked out and I was glad tohelp.
So anytime you need anything,you know how to reach us either
Ken or myself and we're glad tohelp.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Fantastic and, as I said, I'll put all the links in
the podcast notes when wepublish the episode.
But again, I really appreciateyour time.
I say this to all my guests Ifit wasn't for you, it'd just be
me blithering on about not verymuch.
So I really appreciate yourtime, bob.
Thanks very much All right.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Thank you, mike, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Take care.
Thanks very much, cheers.
Hey, thank you for listening toCSI on Fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our web page.
Remember factor non-verbal.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Cheers.
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and episode after episode, we'll
attempt to excavate the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Welcome to CSI on Fire, yourfire investigation podcast.
(00:27):
I've got a fantastic guest onthis week, robert Duvall from
the US.
Welcome to the podcast, thankyou.
Thank you for having me, mike.
I've been given permission tocall you Bob, so I'm going to
call you Bob from now on.
That's great.
It's the first time we've met.
Never met before.
We met sort of Ken Burrows wason the podcast a few weeks ago.
Kindly put us in touch togetherand you've got some fantastic
background and skills.
(00:47):
But as I do on every guest, bob, just take me through your
history, take me through howyou've ended up from start to
finish on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, I started with NFPA in 1997.
I came over from FM Global Atthe time it was Factory Mutual
engineering started as one ofthe two fire investigators at
NFPA and over time I became thefire investigator as staff
changes and such, and I did thatfor several years before taking
(01:16):
on the additionalresponsibilities of a regional
director which serves as a pointof contact to states in your
region.
So I have the eight Northeaststates in the US, from Maine to
New Jersey, the New Englandstates in New York and New
Jersey, and I serve as the pointof contact for state agencies,
whether it's a fire marshal'soffice, a fire department or
(01:39):
just design professionals,building officials, facility
managers and such, to get themwhat they need from NFPA.
Whether they have a codequestion, I can get them to the
people that oversee the codes orget them an answer, or get them
to someone that can give theman answer.
If they're interested intraining, I can get them a line
on setting up some training orquestions on how do I get this
(02:00):
particular code book or how do Ihave access to this and so on.
We're that conduit as regionaldirectors and there's several of
us in the United States andthere's one in the country of
Canada and then we have othersaround the world, but they're
much more global when you getoutside of the US and outside of
North America.
But that's the regionaldirector's part of it.
As the backtrack now, as thefire investigator with NFPA the
(02:25):
name fire investigator is a bitof a misnomer because we don't
have authority to do origin andcause.
We don't have jurisdiction.
We're a nonprofit that developscodes and standards and public
safety and fire safety messagingand training and things such as
that.
We're not an entity that hasany type of jurisdiction and
(02:46):
things such as that.
We're not an entity that hasany type of jurisdiction.
People confuse us often withthe federal government because
there's national in our name,but we're not that.
In fire investigation with theNFPA it's more looking at the
lessons learned from aparticular incident.
For example, there's a majorfire with loss of life or
multi-million dollars inproperty and contents loss.
We go in to take a look at itand we have to be invited.
(03:07):
I can't just get on a plane andshow up and knock on the fire
chief's door and say, hello,here we are.
We have to be invited by ajurisdiction that has
involvement in that fire.
We get there and we startlooking at what caused the fire
to do what it did devour theentire building.
And if there were loss of life,whether it's firefighters or
civilians, what led to that?
(03:27):
Were they cut off from exiting?
Was the fire spread so rapidthat they couldn't get out?
Was there a problem withnotification fire alarm type
stuff?
Was the building sprinklered?
Should it have been sprinklered?
Things such as that.
And then in the past, when Istarted in the 90s, we would
write a standalone report onthat incident, and it was often
(03:48):
extremely detailed the incidentitself, how the fire service
responded to it, the aftermath.
We would comment on the originand cause, if it had been found,
but only from the basis of whatthe jurisdiction found.
So we would say theinvestigators from the state
fire marshal's office haveindicated that the fire started
due to a faulty electricaldevice and such and such.
(04:09):
We don't have any part in thatinvestigation.
So then the other part of thereport would be if the codes had
been in place, is there a needto do something with the code?
Do we need to address somethingthat hasn't been addressed in
the past?
Was it because of newtechnology that wasn't addressed
in the code, for example andthings like that.
(04:29):
We would release the reportAgain I'm going to date myself,
but it used to be black andwhite on paper and then we would
morphed into digital copieswhich were emailable or
downloadable or what have you.
And now, from that format, ourreports or our takeaways from
these incidents will be anarticle in our NFPA journal or a
(04:52):
piece on our website orpresentations that we give to an
audience based on the fire.
That's how we get the word out.
It's still the same audience.
It's just that we've kind ofgone from stone tablets through
to now it's digital.
It's quicker and easier to justput a piece together for the
website and then create apresentation to go out on a road
(05:14):
and speak to constituents andstakeholders in the field.
That's kind of my career atNFPA.
I'm going on 27 years there now.
It's kind of started that Now Ido both now at the same time
and the regional director'sportion takes maybe 70% of my
time and 30% is doing fireinvestigation.
So I kind of balance that as Igo forward.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I think you've got an engineering background, is that
right?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, I graduated from Northeastern University,
which is located in Boston, witha degree in mechanical
engineering technology.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Gotcha gotcha and you mentioned FM Global there.
It's a vague recollection forme, but I think you used to
produce a little red bookletthat had fire investigation on
it, and that was actually myfirst ever little guide.
It was a tiny little bookletand it was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
There was fire investigation.
There was sprinkler systems,which was great for inspectors
to have it in their pocket or intheir clipboard.
They did a few others and NFPAhad done a bunch as well.
A lot of on the electrical sidetoo.
But yeah, that was a thingbefore apps on your phone You'd
have a little pocket guide inyour briefcase or whatever.
But FM gave me a greatbackground because I was doing
(06:20):
inspections and on the insuranceside.
So it was going into insuredsproperties looking for hazards,
looking for they were doingconstruction.
I'd follow the constructionalong to make sure things were
safe while they were doing itand review plans for sprinkler
systems and designs and barriersand firewalls and such.
It was a great background.
It really set me up for what Iwas doing at NFPA, so it gave me
(06:43):
a great foundation when I wentto NFPA.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wow, Okay, I was going to say about what you
mentioned about NFPA do you everget?
Because it strikes me you're anadvisory and you're obviously
for fire protection and fire toprevent fires, but do you ever
get caught to court?
Is that something that happens?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Our investigators have in the past.
In some of the major incidentsthat they have investigated,
like Beverly Hills Supper Club,mgm Grand hotel, casino fires,
things such as that Our fileshave been brought into court
more from a discovery standpoint.
The attorneys want to seewhat's out there.
But we're really careful to bein an advisory role when we go
(07:19):
out or tell a story like areporter would more than delve
into it.
I mean, we do get into thedetails, the engineering details
and data, but in today'ssociety now, one misstep or one
wrong word, next thing you knowsomebody says, oh, we're going
to bring you to court and seewhat.
So we're very careful not to getinvolved in that when we don't
(07:39):
have to.
We're telling a story more thanwagging a finger and telling
somebody oh, you should havedone this, or smoking in bed is
bad things such as that.
But in the past we have beenand then at the most now the
courts will ask to see our filesand they get their photographs
and they get our notes andanything else that we've done.
But it's not where it was wayback in the day, where you'd sit
(08:01):
for a deposition for threehours and so forth.
Sure.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Okay, all right, good , and obviously NFPA 921 is
obviously the kind of Bible, thetextbook for fire
investigations.
Certainly it's constantlyreferred to and obviously if you
want to be a certified fireinvestigator with IWAI even
National Association of FireInvestigation they're all using
NFPA 921.
And I think the new additionsliterally just come out.
So do you have much to do withthat?
(08:24):
Do you have updating that?
Are you sitting on anycommittees or anything?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
No, there are like 400 people in the world that
can't participate in the NFPAprocess and they're the
employees from NFPA.
I don't oversee the committee.
That is another gentlemanwithin NFPA.
I help him in the field,getting the word out, doing
presentations on the latestadditions and things like that,
but he oversees the committeeand the members and task groups
and things like that.
You are correct, the newedition has just come out.
As a matter of fact, I'mwaiting for my copy.
(08:53):
It's supposed to be deliveredsometime this week.
I still get them in paper justto have as a reference, in
addition to our digital platform.
But it has just come out and,just like every previous edition
, the committee thinks long andhard about what content is going
to be in there, what's changed,what's updated, what's removed
because it's obsolete and such.
When you do get the new copy orreview the new copy, just go to
(09:17):
the front of the book and lookunder scope and origin and
development, read thoseparagraphs and if you go to the
very bottom of that section inthe front of the book, it'll
tell you what's changed orwhat's new in this edition and
then, when you go into theactual text, you can see the
markers what's new, what'schanged in the margins?
Anything with a little N in themargin is new.
(09:38):
Anything that's shaded has beenchanged.
Those have been in place for awhile.
They're constantly working onthat document, like any other
NFPA document in a cycle, butit's to keep up with the
technology.
That's the biggest thing andwhat they're finding in the
field, what the investigatorsare dealing with in the field,
what they're dealing with in thecourt system and just bringing
in what the folks on thecommittee are seeing in the
(10:01):
field.
These are all practitioners inone form or another and what
they see in their field andspeak and get spoken to by their
colleagues and say, hey, I'mfinding this in the field.
I'll use an example.
Several editions ago theystarted talking about digital
photography.
We all kind of take that forgranted.
Now we have it on our phone.
We just don't hesitate to takepictures.
(10:21):
But previous I can't put anactual time on it but digital
photography was not allowed inthe court.
You had to produce an actualI'll call it a paper photograph
and you had to have your log andwhere it was developed and the
chain of custody, and all ofthat because they didn't know
enough about digital photographyand people were afraid it could
be altered and so forth.
(10:42):
But as soon as people becameaware of metadata, which is all
of that data behind thephotograph on when it was taken,
where it was taken, what timeit was taken, what direction you
were pointing in when you tookit, and all of those things,
then you could prove that thepicture was as taken on this day
, at this time at this location,and it wasn't altered.
They began to bring in digitalphotography into the document as
(11:05):
it came into the court systemand as it became a part of the
fire investigations toolbox.
Now it's an accepted practice,as long as you follow the
procedure, so you can vouch forall of the photography that you
take, including mistakenphotographs with your thumb over
the lens or whatever.
You still have to verify yeah,I took this photograph.
(11:26):
This is why the numbers on myevidence list go from 12 to 15,
because 13 and 14 are blurryphotos because I had my thumb
over the lens or something.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Things like that.
So that's an example.
Wildfire investigation wasanother big thing that, over the
last couple of editions, hasbecome a bigger and bigger part
of the document.
Big thing that over the lastcouple of editions, has become a
bigger and bigger part of thedocument.
These fires are occurring allover the world in bigger and
bigger sizes and causing moreand more property damage.
Everyone is having them.
Australia's had some terribleones and in Europe, in very
(11:56):
densely populated areas inEurope, you had a terrible one
in Hawaii, didn't you recently?
Yep, hawaii, california, theMidwest Texas is suffering right
now in the panhandle section oftheir state.
Canada has had some terriblefires and some of them are still
burning.
They're smoldering underneaththe snow cover and I read
something this week where now,as the snow begins to melt,
(12:17):
these fires, they're going tocome back to life in these areas
and they have to account forall of these zombie fires
they're calling them.
But these fires have to beinvestigated as well and it's
kind of a different way to goabout it.
While you're still followingthe scientific method, you don't
have some of the markers thatyou would have in a structural
fire or an automobile or amachine fire.
There's a different avenue toapproach, but that's become a
(12:40):
bigger part of the document aswell in the past couple of
editions.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, on the Wildfield I think I've got a
couple of guys coming on thatsee, in Wildfield we don't
really suffer.
Obviously I'm from the UK wedon't really suffer a great deal
.
We have Heath fires and bitsand pieces, but nothing to the
extent.
But we did this last year Ithink there was one that took
out quite a lot of houses.
But coming back to the wet film, I mean I started my career as
(13:05):
a CSI in wet photography and weadopted digital in about 2005.
You're absolutely right, Ithink in a lot of ways digital
is more robust than wet filmbecause it gives you that
metadata, you know, it gives youtime and GPS and all that good
stuff, whereas wet film, it tooka little bit of while to get
over that mindset and, as yousaid, the kind of practices that
you had to include burning.
(13:26):
While we still burn three orfour discs one's always kept as
an original in case anyallegation of tampering that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Good, good.
I mean you've had a fantasticcareer, bob.
And just one thing before.
I guess you're always welcomeif you're invited.
If you don't go without aninvite, you're always a face
that's welcomed.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah Well, you don't want to surprise anyone on their
worst day If they've had arather large fire.
The last thing you want to dois go up and tap someone on the
shoulder and say, hey, I'm withthe NFPA, I'm here to help and
we have a large network ofconnections.
A lot of these fire servicefolks and marshals and things
participate in our process,either through training or the
code committee process orcomment proposal parts.
(14:04):
We have a network and if wedon't have a person, we know a
person who knows the person incharge there or we can get some
route to the authority that'soverseeing the incident and we
just send a simple call or asimple email and say if you need
any assistance, we're reallyinterested in this fire.
Is there any way we could talkto you, speak to you?
And even if it's just a phonecall or a quick virtual meeting,
(14:27):
they say no, we want you tocome out here and look at this.
This is really significant.
We want you to come out and seethis.
We will and we'll do the best wecan to get out there as soon as
we can and document what we canphotographs and interviews and
just get the lay of the land andthen come back and then
(14:47):
continue that follow-up and seewhere this fits.
Does it become an article inour NFPA journal?
Is it a presentation?
Or, in some cases, if theincident is of a certain
magnitude, we'll just reportback to the committee that has
that kind of jurisdiction say, ahealthcare fire.
We'll go to NFPA 101 or NFPA 99committee and say I've got a
short presentation.
This fire occurred in this townand this is what the result was.
(15:09):
I just wanted to give you guysthe details right from the fire
department, right from the city,right from whoever was
assisting us, and the committeegets it firsthand.
They're not having to filterthrough media stories and
hearsay, through people on theinternet and all kinds of things
.
They get it directly from thesource.
And that means a lot to thembecause then they can make their
(15:31):
own decisions based on that andthen they can establish a back
and forth.
Hey, I've got a question forthe facility manager at that
clinic.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Okay, I'll let you see if you can speak to you and
we can put the two of themtogether and provide that sort
of service as well, gotcha, andI think there's obviously a
level of I guess it's you canbring additional resources and
there's a level of trust therebecause you're not sitting in
judgment.
In effect, it's you agreeingwith whatever the state marshal
is saying, and I think youfocused on something that I
think is really important thereas well is that it's a fairly
(15:58):
small world fire investigation,and if you're in one area you
tend to bump into the same fireinvestigators, whether they be
from private or public, on aconstant, and it's always nice
that you know them before thatyou've met before, even if it's
for a cup of coffee or whatever.
Great, fantastic.
Let's move on, really, bob, tosome of the cases that you've
dealt with.
I know you've probably dealtwith the biggest case in the
world and certainly a second onewhich is very well known within
(16:21):
the fire investigationcommunity, so tell us about some
of the cases that you've beeninvolved with.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
As we were speaking before we came on the two
largest ones that I've beeninvolved with at NFPA.
One of them is not necessarilya fire investigation, but we got
involved because NFPA was askedto participate, and then the
other one was a fireinvestigation.
We'll talk about the WorldTrade Center bombings or
disaster first.
After that happened, you speakof small world.
I was at a fire investigationconference in Rhode Island the
(16:48):
morning of September 11th andall of the folks that were there
are all fire police or somesort of public servant, and
we're all huddled around TVs andthis is back in the day of
beepers and pagers andeveryone's pagers are going off
and getting asked to come backto town and so on.
So we watched the better partof the morning in a hotel room
on the television and we allbroke up and went back and
(17:12):
started gathering as muchinformation as we could and so
on.
And over the course of the nextcouple of days we were asked
FEMA, the Federal EmergencyManagement Association in the US
, put together a team ofstructural and fire protection
people to go and look at thesite in a data gathering form
(17:33):
more than anything else.
The committee was probablymaybe 18 or 20 people from
various backgrounds.
You had structural engineers,you had fire protection
engineers, you had civilengineers, you had chemical
engineers.
I represented NFPA on the codeside.
So I was on both sides of thefence.
I had the structural stuff andthe design for egress and such
(17:56):
and the fire protection sidesprinklers and fire pumps and
things and I was one of the fewon the committee that had a fire
service background as well.
So in cases I ended up beingthe translator or the liaison
between the committee membersand FDNY.
I was able to kind of translateback and forth as we were
talking or I had a gut feelingthis was a good idea to talk to
(18:19):
this person and not that person,and so on and not that person
and so on.
So we went down.
That's not far from my homehere in Connecticut.
So I took the train down and wemet in one evening.
We all got together and we hadour marching orders of what we
were going to do.
We went down to the site.
We had to get checked in, wehad to get credentials and so on
, and then we broke into groupsand we all took certain sections
(18:40):
.
The first days was just gettingthe scope of the magnitude,
because the recovery was stillgoing on, they were still
putting fires out, they werestill surveying areas.
It was still basically in oneof the largest crime scenes in
the world.
We were tread lightly, we weregoing around and we each had
certain areas to look at.
So with our credentials we werekind of allowed to go pretty
(19:01):
much wherever we wanted.
My group ended up in the outsidebuildings.
So if you looked at the plotbefore, they've completely
rearranged it now with thememorial and the other buildings
that are there.
The two towers are in thecenter and around the perimeter
were the other buildings.
It was World Trade Center 3, 4,5, 6, and 7.
My group was looking at 5, 6,and 7.
(19:23):
I believe World Trade Centerthree was considered the hotel
Marriott, if I'm not mistaken.
We were looking at thesesmaller buildings.
They were low-rise buildings,six and seven stories, and then
World Trade Center seven was amuch bigger building.
It was another high-risebuilding.
We had access to thesebuildings.
We walked inside and we sawsome incredible sites of
structural steel that had justturned to taffy before it
(19:44):
hardened again.
Certain parts of the buildingstood while others collapsed,
and we took a tremendous amountof pictures and documented as
much as we possibly could.
Again, my fire servicebackground kicked in.
We would go through a door andI would wedge it open after we
went through and at one pointone of the engineers asked me
she goes why are you doing that?
And I says, if that door closesbehind us, we're going to have
(20:06):
to wave out a window and hopethat somebody can come and find
us, because if that door closeswe may not be able to get out to
the other side.
She goes oh, very good, wedgeall the doors you'd like between
now and the time we get out.
Wedge all the doors you'd likebetween now and the time we get
out.
Yeah, we spent time in that.
We took a long, hard look atbuilding seven, which is the one
that collapsed, late in theafternoon on that day and each
night we would get back togetherand huddle and discuss what we
(20:28):
found and kind of break up theassignments for the next day.
We spent over a week down there, every day going into the site,
coming back out, and then wegathered what we thought we
needed and we returned back toour offices and then began a
large group chat withcloud-based storage and we
shared all of our information.
We also went out to some of thelandfills where they were
(20:50):
taking the steel and we werelooking at steel while it was
out there and such.
From that came the preliminaryreport on the World Trade Center
, which became the basis for theNIST report that came out
several years later in multiplevolumes, which was much more
detailed information and domodeling and reverse engineering
(21:20):
based on photography anddamages and such.
How many gallons of fuel wereon the plane?
How hot was the fire in thisarea?
What damage was caused?
How many column lines weretaken out when the planes hit
things?
What caused the buildings tocollapse?
We did the legwork, thatpreliminary work that led to
that much more detailed report.
I still communicate with some ofthe people that were on that
committee with me.
We still have an email,friendship sort of thing, and I
(21:41):
still remember that.
I mean that's one of the mosttraumatic things in the
country's history and to be downthere.
And whenever I go back to NewYork City I'll go by places and
say, oh, I remember that westayed here or we walked by
there or that's where we caughtthe train.
I'll never forget thatexperience and I played an
extremely small role in thatcommittee's work.
I mean, there were people witha lot of letters after their
(22:02):
name on that committee, but theywere great people Cracker, jack
, engineers, stuff that I wouldnever even thought of.
They were just looking atthings going.
Yeah, this is what happenedhere, and everyone was working
together.
There were no egos, there wereno.
I'm going to do this, I'm goingto do that.
I want my name at the top ofthe list.
Everybody worked together,realizing that what their work
(22:22):
was going to mean.
Yeah, have an answer to somepeople on why this happened.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Really important stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
That was the trade center.
Well, the biggest fire of mytime at NFPA was the station
nightclub fire in Rhode Island,again not far from my home.
Here I'm getting a complex.
All these incidents arehappening within a couple hours
of my home base, that particularfire.
I was on my way to a conferencein Hong Kong of all places, and
(22:50):
I was going to speak there.
I had a stop in Chicago for apresentation there.
I had dinner the night beforewith a colleague and we were
both speaking at the conferencethe next morning.
So we said our goodbyes andwent back to the hotel.
And this was back in the daywhere you had to have an
international cell phone.
You had to have a phone thatwas set up for international
(23:11):
calling.
So I didn't have my usual cellphone with me, I had an
international phone and I had itplugged in on the nightstand in
the hotel phone with me.
I had an international phoneand I had it plugged in on the
nightstand in the hotel and twopeople had the number my boss
and my wife.
The phone rings at like 4.30 inthe morning, five o'clock in
the morning in Chicago and theworst comes to mind oh,
(23:33):
something's wrong with the kidsSomething's happened.
So I fumble for the phone, Ianswer it and it's my boss.
So I immediately say okay, thefamily's okay, what's up.
And all he said to me was Ireally hate to bother you this
early, but turn the televisionon.
And that's what he said.
And I'm like what do you mean?
He goes no, just turn the TV on.
So of course I put the TV on.
He says just go to any one ofthe news channels.
So I put on one of the 24 hournews channels and there it was.
(23:54):
And I says, oh my God.
I says I know where.
That is, not the club itself,but I know that city, that town.
He says we're getting wordsthat there's maybe upwards of a
hundred people killed.
He says how soon can you getback?
And I said well, I got a flightthis afternoon at four o'clock
to go to Hong Kong.
And he goes we'll take care ofthat.
We're going to get you on aflight back here and land.
(24:16):
The airport is 20 minutes fromwhere the fire was.
He says can you get somebody tomeet you at the airport with
your cameras and your uniform,which was a BDU type thing or
winter jacket, because it wasFebruary and such.
I says yeah, I can contact myfamily and they can meet me at
the airport.
Our office worked out thearrangements.
I called my colleague who I haddinner with the night before,
(24:37):
who, who happened to work forNIST, and he had heard the same
thing on the news and he saidask the marshal in Rhode Island
if he wants us to come in andhelp him with a model of the
fire.
And I said absolutely.
So I got on a plane.
I'm scribbling notes andeverything on the plane, trying
to get my head around this.
I land, my family meets me atthe airport, I do a trade-off.
(24:57):
I hand them my suitcase fromwhat was going to be a week's
worth of clothes in Hong Kong.
They hand me a suitcase full ofwork clothes and my cameras and
I got in my pickup truck and Idrove to the fire scene and my
family drove home with all mystuff from my trip.
So I got there and I had calledthe assistant state fire marshal
and he knew I was coming.
He says get as close as you canand I'll meet you in front of
(25:19):
the building.
So I found a parking spot.
This is in a very tightneighborhood.
I found a parking spot andhoping I wasn't going to get a
ticket or get towed.
And I grabbed my stuff and Iwalked down and I met him and it
was in the parking lot in frontof the club and I just remember
looking over his shoulder as hecame up to see me and I
couldn't be more surprised ashow small the footprint of the
(25:41):
building was and thinking ahundred people died in this
small building.
And then the magnitude of itwas, yes, they had 400 people in
that building and a hundred ofthem weren't able to get out and
another 200 or some wereinjured in the event of trying
to get out.
So I got a chance to walk aroundand meet people and kind of get
a lay of the land and I metsome folks from the ATF that was
(26:04):
already there, the Bostonoffice had their people down
there assisting and Rhode Islandput out an all call for fire
marshals and detectives from thestate police and local police
departments.
They were doing interviews andsuch and investigators were
sifting already no-transcript.
(26:48):
And he was getting ready toleave when the lead, the main
act, came on and he stayed forthat.
His whole intent was the firstminute or two and then he was
going to make his way out and goback to the studio and do his
editing and things and he caughtone of the most tragic fire
scenes in the world on video.
Our whole thing from that pointwas why didn't everybody get
(27:09):
out?
Was the exiting designedproperly?
What led to the crowd crush andthings?
The place did not havesprinkler protection.
How come it didn't havesprinkler protection?
What led to that decision orlack of a decision and so forth?
To kind of fast forward, I metthe fire marshal that night.
He said absolutely to NIST'srequest to come in.
Nist came in the next day.
(27:30):
They flew in and landed thenext day, got all of their data
over the next couple of days andtheir modeling and their
recreation is still available onthe web.
They did a side-by-sidesprinkler to not sprinkler and
the timeline is almost exact towhat the video shows as far as
fire spread without sprinklersversus fire spread with
sprinklers.
(27:50):
That same timeframe, I believe.
Two sprinklers went off withina minute and it basically would
have made for a bunch of wetpatrons but they wouldn't have
been fatalities.
There would have been injuriesbut no fatalities and
unsprinkled within a minute anda half, the entire inside of
that club was untenable both intemperature and carbon monoxide.
Again, to fast forward a littlebit further, the state looked
(28:13):
inward quite a bit and said weneed to make some changes in our
fire code.
They looked to us again andsaid what can you guys do to
help?
And we helped them adopt NFPA 1and NFPA 101 with some
amendments state-centricamendments and that became their
fire code going forward, and ithas been ever since.
The silver lining in thisterrible tragedy is that they
(28:36):
made some changes which havemost likely saved lives over the
years since that fire.
And now they are very sensitiveabout areas of public assembly,
whether it's nightclubs orarenas or anything else, and any
marshal in Rhode Island.
You talk to it and they saywhenever we do a place of
assembly, this is always in theback of our mind.
(28:56):
I don't want this to becomeanother nightclub fire that
kills dozens of people.
While that was a tragedy ofepic proportion, there was still
a small silver lining that cameout of it and we had a part of
it.
The team at NFPA had a part ofit.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
We should probably say that it was started by
Pyrotechnics, wasn't it from theband?
And it obviously caught some ofthe linings and bits and pieces
that was there.
And I've watched the footageand I've seen some things.
I've seen some terrible things,but that footage is really
harrowing because it just keepsrecording while people are
trying to obviously still getout and, yeah, it's pretty
harrowing.
But I see there was only Ithink it was only last year late
(29:31):
last year, the iraq fire.
There was a wedding and verysimilar pyrotechnics again
catching stuff, and so, yeah, itcould, yeah, it could still
happen.
It still does happen.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Within a year of the fire.
I can remember it was aroundChristmas time because I was on
break and I was just driving inmy vehicle running errands and
the phone rang and it was thestate fire marshal in Rhode
Island who was about ready toretire.
If I remember correctly, it waslike a Saturday morning.
So it was like oh, what is hecalling for?
It's not business, whatever.
And he says did you see theterrible fire that happened?
(30:03):
I believe it was in the MiddleEast, yeah, it was Iraq, I think
Not the wedding fire.
This was a year after thestation club fire.
I don't remember exactly whereit was.
No, it was in South America, Ibelieve.
And he says another nightclubpyrotechnics, combustible finish
inside, overcrowding, and theykilled dozens of people.
And he goes when are we goingto learn our lesson?
And it was like, yeah, the moreyou get out in front of people
(30:27):
and say hey, you've got toprevent this from happening,
you've got to put sprinklers,you've got to design the exiting
to get people out, you've gotto do this, this and this.
Right up until last year, awedding venue with combustible
streamers hanging from theceiling, they're shooting off
sparklers or whatever it was atthat wedding venue.
They didn't have the exitingdesigned for anywhere near the
amount of people that were inthere.
They killed dozens of people.
(30:47):
We continue to fight the goodfight, but there's these cases
that slip through the cracks.
But it's been said, and one ofthe overarching mantras in fire
protection and building safetyprotection protection is if we
will learn one thing fromhistory, is that we don't learn
from history.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what's happening.
The folks have a short memorywhen it comes to things like
(31:08):
that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, exactly, but I think that's why I'm quite keen
on this podcast to haverepresentatives from NFPA,
because you're not just thestandards for us as fire
investigators, you offerstandards across the board in
terms of building codes and bitsand pieces and adoption of
those, and obviously we had Kenon and the spreading of the word
is all good, great.
I just picked up on somethingyou said.
I know you're a volunteerfirefighter and do you think
(31:31):
that makes you a better fireinvestigator, being a
firefighter as well?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I don't want to say been there, done that and sound
like I've been there and donethat, but it gives you a little
bit more background.
Most of the investigators thatI know, especially on the public
side, whether they're on thepolice side or on the fire side
in their branch where they work,are firefighters or have been
at one point or another.
Even the law enforcement folks.
While they can't be careerfirefighters because they're
(31:55):
career police officers, they maybe volunteers in their
community or they served as afirefighter before they became a
police officer or detective.
So it gives you a little bit ofbackground.
I mean, it gives you a step up,because you've already seen
certain things or you have anidea of how things develop in a
fire.
Either you've seen it firsthandwhile you were crawling in with
(32:15):
a hose line or to do a search,or you've seen it in a training
fire, or you've set up atraining fire to do certain
things, like a flashoversimulator.
Now you can actually createflashovers in a compartment
where it's relatively safe to doand you can watch this.
People that haven't beenexposed to that often will not
have a idea on the magnitude orthe power or the speed of how
(32:39):
certain things will happen in afire.
If you go all the way to thecivilian side, most civilians
get their information on firesfrom TV and movies and things
like that, where it's beenedited, so the smoke isn't there
so you can see the stars' facesand hear the stars and such or
action movies.
The guy pulls the fire alarmand all the sprinklers go off in
(33:00):
the building to cover theirescape.
So they have that backgroundand it's like no, that's not
correct.
We have to educate people as wego, both as investigators and as
public fire safety educators.
No, all the sprinklers aren'tgoing to go off.
Or you have two minutes to exityour home.
If you have a fire, you don'thave 30 minutes like you see on
television and a fire starts atthe beginning of the show and
(33:22):
before 30 minutes is up theyfinally get out and whatever.
Having a little background ishelpful from that perspective.
Or you can kind of go back inyour head and say yeah, I've
seen this before, just likeinvestigators do.
They say yeah, I've had asimilar case to this, and the
slides in your head start goingyep, okay, this is what happened
in this case.
It's the same with having afire background.
(33:42):
You say, I fought a fire thatlooked like this or was like
this or involved something likethis.
So it gives you a little bit ofbackground life experience to
fall back on as an investor.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, definitely.
I like to sort of say, as yousaid, the scientific interpreter
.
Really, if you know how to putout a fire, if you understand
fire behavior and you know spraypatterns and gas cooling and
that kind of stuff and you'relooking at a clean burn on the
top, is that a clean burn or isthat gas cooling?
And it's fairly obvious if youknow.
But it's just that kind ofknowledge.
And before I came to RiyadhI've reviewed a number of
(34:11):
criminal cases and I rememberbriefing back on one of those
criminal cases and you've gotthe typical kind of lit
cigarette into a pool ofignitable liquid nonsense.
It is amazing how much we callit the CSI effect in our world.
People expect it much quicker.
You can do things that youcan't necessarily do, but it's
amazing.
I showed a couple of videosabout ignitable liquids and the
(34:31):
question was about the burnpatterns to individuals in this
particular case.
And just showing a few videosto the senior investigating
officer, just showing factualvideos as opposed to TV movies.
We shouldn't use backdraft as areference.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I'm banging on with you there, the fire station,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah, exactly, Exactly Fantastic.
That's been brilliant.
What's kind of next for you?
What's your daily job?
Look like to be honest, Bob.
What do you do on a daily basis?
How's it pan out?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, if I'm not traveling, if I'm not doing a
presentation or doing aninvestigation or a follow-up,
the first thing I do when I getup is I start looking at the
newswire for major incidentsthat may have happened overnight
, check my phone if anybody hadcontacted me from around the
world, network the friends andcolleagues and say, hey, there
was a terrible fire in such andsuch.
In most cases they'll send youa link to a news story.
(35:19):
I'll do some general searches.
I've got a lot of differentthings that end up in my email
box in the morning and I'll lookthrough and say, oh, okay, that
one looks interesting or thatone, and I'll put together a
summary and share it with thefolks at NFPA.
And it's always kind ofcross-discipline stuff.
There'll be stuff about storage, there'll be stuff about
residential, there may be alarmtype stuff and fire suppression
(35:42):
or fire service related thingsand people read it and it's just
like a newsletter.
They say, oh, could you get memore information on this?
So could you put me in contactwith someone from this fire?
I have a question?
And say, all right, I'm goingto start making phone calls.
Or if it's out of my region,I'll contact the regional person
(36:06):
for that area, saying do youhave a contact at the state fire
marshal or the city metro firedepartment there that we could
ask if it's okay if we ask morequestions, or would you like us
to come out?
That's how that starts.
That's usually the beginning ofthe day and then from there
it's whatever's going on.
Is there something I'mpreparing for a presentation or
preparing to go and meet withassociations, whether it's
marshals, chiefs, buildingofficials, design professionals
(36:29):
and such?
Do we set up public educationmeetings or information
testifying or providingtestimony for legislation that's
coming up that supports ourdocuments or may not?
So we can submit something inopposition of that and things
such as that.
Most of it is networking andworking, answering questions
that come in and keeping trackof things going on in your
(36:51):
region.
You don't want to be surprisedto have somebody call you saying
, hey, they passed a bill inthis state to do this and you
didn't know anything about it.
You could have either helpedprevent it or help support it or
, if it got shot down or hadyour support, maybe would have
pushed it over the finish line,things like that.
It's constantly scanning forinformation and taking
(37:12):
information in and gettinginformation back out again to
keep all of the stakeholders inyour region advised and making
them want to come to NFPA as ago-to source for information.
The phone will ring and say Bob, I'm at my wit's end, I can't
find anything on this.
Could you help me?
And we'll say, okay, let melook and see where that is, or
(37:33):
what code addresses that, or ifwe even have something on that.
And if we don't, maybe somebodyin our research area says yes,
we're working on research, or Iknow of research that's in that
particular arena, and we can putthe two people together and get
some information going back andforth.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean obviously I met Ken here in
Riyadh.
He came to a conference that wewere running here at the Nate
Farrow University.
Is it a global opportunity?
Could anyone around the worldsort of get in contact with an
FPA and say hey, help us out out.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, absolutely, we're more concentrated in North
America because that's our homebase, but we have
representatives around the world, such as Ken out in the Middle
East.
We have folks in South Americaand Europe and such.
And when in doubt you justreach out and you just go to the
website and send a comment in.
Or there's NFPA Exchange, whichis kind of an engineering
bulletin board, blog-based placewhere you could place a
question.
It doesn't cost anything tojoin, you just got to create a
(38:27):
profile.
There's NFPA Network, whichagain, it's a newsletter type
thing and you can choose theinformation that comes to you.
So if you're not interested inwildfire, you don't check that
box.
But you can get building andlife safety, fire service and
things, and the newsletter comesout once a week, once every
other week and with information,and it's all free.
You can click on it and getmore information or what have
(38:49):
you.
There's conduit, there's ways toget back and forth, but when in
doubt there's a contact usthing on the website.
You can look for someone thatmay fit your bill or just reach
out to an individual close toyou or say hey, I've got a
question.
Who do I speak to at NFPA onthis, and if I'm not the person,
because I'll get these randomphone calls about oh, what about
this?
(39:10):
And say, well, I'm not theperson to speak to on that, but
let me take your name and numberor send me an email and I'll
pass it along to the person thatcan help you.
The old adage is you don't haveto know everything, you just
have to know where you can findit, and that's pretty much what
it boils down to.
I can't possibly put all ofthat information here, but if
you know where to find it or whocan help you with it, then
(39:30):
that's half the battle, rightthere.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
We just say the NFPA exchange and network and we'll
put that on the podcast, thelink, when the show goes out, if
that's okay.
I think you're absolutely rightand it seems to be a very
constant message is that acrossall the FIs I've spoke to, I
would say 99.9% of them, If youdon't know, there's no shame in
not knowing.
It's just making sure that youfind the information, you can
pass it on.
You can't be an expert.
(39:53):
I know nothing about wildfires.
In fact, I was asked somequestions about wildfires and
it's kind of like nah, it's kindof witchcraft to me.
That's really important, Ithink, to say If you had
anything, if I'm a new FI, as Iam trying to develop and learn,
is there anything you would top,tips or tricks or anything that
you've really learned over theyear that you kind of could
think about bring to the table?
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Well, a couple of things.
Get yourself a mentor.
It doesn't have to be formallytype thing, but rely on people
that have been there and donethat and listen to them.
Don't try to one-up them sayingoh, we had this the other day.
And listen to them and let themgive you or pass along their
experience.
It's just like any other careerfield you want to talk to the
(40:34):
people that have been therebefore you.
And then, when you've got agood background like that,
you've been to some fires,you've been to some scenes,
you've talked to some people,you've seen some things, you've
made mistakes.
We've all done that.
We've all said, oh no, I thinkit started over here.
And then everything else pointsto across the room.
And then the other thing isembrace the technology.
We joked about digitalphotography 20 years ago or
(40:59):
maybe 30 years ago.
If somebody told you that a dogwas going to be able to tell you
where accelerant had beenpoured at a fire, you would have
said what kind of black magicis that?
Now, most agencies that havethat resource rely on it and it
is very accurate.
If the dog is handled properlyand the evidence is handled
properly and documented, a lotof people, a lot of agencies
(41:20):
rely on this now and it's beenproven again and again and again
in court that, yes, this dog'snose is extremely accurate and,
as long as it's backed up, youtake the sample to the lab and
you say, yep, this is anignitable liquid and so on.
But without that you'd betaking samples of every inch of
carpet in a building and the labwould finally have to tell you
to stop.
We can't possibly test all ofthis and the lab would finally
(41:41):
have to tell you to stop.
We can't possibly test all ofthis.
That sort of thing.
Embrace it.
And now modeling stuff that'sout there now, whether it's just
a 3D model of your buildingthat helps make that evidence.
If you're making demonstrativeevidence to a jury or to a
client and say this is whathappened here, before it was a
line sketch on graph paper.
Now you can do 3D modeling, youcan roll the building around,
(42:07):
you can do all kinds of things.
And then the fire dynamicsmodeling that you can do.
Or pointing to research embracethe research that's out there,
all of these old wives talesabout spalled concrete and
crazed glass and all of thesethings.
Now there's research to back upventilation profiles, neutral
planes, all of these things.
It's all research based.
It's not well.
Mike said he saw a fire oncethat did this.
Okay, that's good, that's onefire in the history of fire.
(42:31):
But if you can take researchbased things and have it backed
up in science, look for that.
And that has gone light speedin the last 10 years.
I mean I can remember when firemodeling first came out you
needed to get so much data andthe computer needed to be the
size of a small house to processall of that data and then you
would get a line drawing withsome really colorful graphics on
(42:54):
temperatures and things.
And now the processing speedand size and power is such you
can just crunch some numbers andthen play around with it and
say I'm going to make it do whatit did in this case and move
around, and that will help proveyour point or disprove your
hypothesis and say no, it can'tpossibly have happened the way I
(43:14):
thought it did.
I got to go back to scratch andstart over again.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, yeah, and I think going back to like a more
basic one of the canine, the dogasset obviously does a massive
amount of work in a very shortperiod of time and helps you
kind of focus down and look atthat.
And you've got to bear in mindas well the context of that.
Not liquid, but what is theactual context of it?
Is it legitimate reason thereto have it there or not?
But I think on the firemodeling side and on the 3D kind
of stuff virtual sort ofmetaverse type stuff where you
(43:39):
can actually put yourself withinit and walk through it I've got
River coming on.
We've got virtual realitysoftware here that we put
students through on fireinvestigation.
But also on the modeling side,I think with AI they're going to
see another exponential sort ofleap.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Pretty, oh, absolutely.
That's the next step.
Vr is taking its role now intraining and education.
You put a person in a roomthat's on fire.
Home Fire Sprinkler Coalitionhas got that river platform
where you can do that withvirtual reality goggles.
And in training, fire trainingthis platform's out there, so
you're not necessarily doinglive burns all the time.
(44:13):
You can do shipboardfirefighting, for example.
It's very hard to do that inmany areas because you just
can't get the resources to do it.
You can do it virtually to helpbuild a base of people for
information, but that's comingand you have to embrace it.
You can't just say, no, I'm notgoing to do that, because it's
especially with the generationsthat are coming up that are
accustomed to it.
Kids that are in high schooland college now.
(44:35):
They're very accustomed to itand that's the way they want to
learn versus somebody in their40s and 50s and 60s.
That's like this is their firstexposure to it and they're like
, wow, this is some kind ofcrazy magic.
But yeah, you have to embracethat and use it where it fits
you, whether it's providing datato the jury to show them
something, or a class ofstudents, or proving or
(44:56):
disproving your hypothesis.
It's another avenue rather thanjust sticking to pen and paper.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, sure, and I think the important thing about
sort of the youth that's comingI mean I'm 52.
So both in the CSI and the FIworld in our world, is that they
don't know anything else thanthe scientific model.
They don't know anythingdifferent because we started in
the time when I say wet film,wet film, photography, like they
look at me as if I'm crazy.
They just don't know anydifferent, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
They've seen an old movie, where the person was in
the dark room and so on.
They have no idea, even thoughthe 35 millimeter digital
cameras look very similar.
I have a kit that looks verysimilar to the first one I had
when I came to NFPA.
The only difference is I don'thave to put a roll of film in
the dark or hide it under myjacket to put the roll in there
every 24 photographs.
The chip I have in the back ofthat camera.
(45:40):
I could take 5,000 photographsand I would have to forget to
download it because it says oh,that thing's not even close to
being full.
In the old days you snapped offa bunch of pictures in one
corner of the room and you tookthat rollout, put it in the case
, put it away and then went tohave it develop and we were at
fires where we would send aperson to the local department
store to buy a sleeve of filmand keeping track of all of that
(46:02):
.
Now everything's digital.
You can look at the pictureimmediately after you take it in
the screen in the back of thecamera and realize nope, that
wasn't quite right, or there's ashadow there, and then take
another one.
And that technology has justgone light speed since I started
doing this, and it's the ruleof the land.
Now, if you brought an actualpaper photograph into court
right now, they would probablygo what is this?
(46:23):
Where did you find this?
What museum did you find thisin?
But yeah, digital photography.
Now for the way you present itto a jury or to students or to
whoever is.
The way that you just create apresentation and put it up on a
projector or on a smart boardand show people.
This is what it is.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
I think with, like the AI and also these kind of
Google headset type things, youknow, I think we'll see a time
where, with the 3D scanning offire scenes and any other scene,
you can ask the jury to kind ofput on this headset and they
can be orientated around it, andit's a fantastic tool in terms
of EP electronic presentation ofevidence.
We did a little bit of that inBeirut for the UN.
They were able to see a livemodel and asked to see different
(47:03):
angles and bits and pieces.
The dutch police actually cameand scanned the whole scene for
us, which was kind of cuttingedge at the time.
But yeah, like you say, bringout a film.
I have to say, do you all knowwhat a film canister is?
And they're, like you know, getyou know, no idea so often
you'll see it.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
They'll pop up on the internet and somebody will take
a picture of the film canisterand they'll say does anybody
know what this is?
And I always default to thething I said that's where I put
my rubber gloves and my firegear.
Now you take a pair of rubbergloves that you'd wear in an EMS
call.
You fold them up in that filmcanister, you stick it in the
coat, the pocket and yourturnout coat and the gloves
don't get destroyed, and thenyou know what they are.
(47:38):
You feel for that littlecanister.
You pop the top, you put yourgloves on and you can go to work
, but people put coins in themor whatever.
Nobody uses that film anymore.
So there's all of these filmcanisters kicking around.
I've seen them in workshopswhere people will put little
nuts and bolts in them andthings Great, but nobody has any
idea what they were originallyused for.
And those days are gone.
They went by the wayside withdigital photography.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
And I think the great thing about not just digital,
but I sometimes use my iPhone,and the reason I do that is
because if I'm doing anelectrical distribution board or
something like that, I can markit up there and then I know
what's coming in, what's comingout, and that's also something
that I find really useful.
I'm a bit old school in termsof pen and paper and notes and
stuff, and I'm trying to getover to the iPad and doing
(48:20):
e-notes or something like thatas you go, but I'm a bit old
fashioned in that way.
We still like the old pen andpaper.
All right, thanks very much,bruce.
I mean, what's next for you?
What's coming up for you?
Have you got anything in thepipeline?
Any conferences, anything likethat?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Batteries, lithium ion batteries and battery energy
storage systems are theemerging technology that
everybody wants to know about,both on the fire side, the
safety side, designing systemsand so on.
We're very busy doingpresentations for stakeholders
in that realm.
We have a group of folks atNFPA that are constantly
gathering information, newinformation on what's incidents
(48:55):
that are happening in the fieldNew York City is an epicenter
for these fires on micromobility devices that are
catching fire in residentialproperties and such.
But we have a standard, nfpa855, which is stationary battery
energy storage systems, andit's gotten a lot of interest
because these installations aregoing in or being proposed in a
lot of areas and people are likeI don't know the first thing
(49:18):
about this, but all I know isthat I see a lot of these
batteries that are catching fireand doing this and doing that,
but they're kind of on two endsof the spectrum.
Your e-mobility stuff issmaller.
Batteries tend to be lessengineered and such, and then
the battery energy storagesystems are the very seriously
engineered design systems andsuch.
There's a lot of education goingon in fire service and people
(49:39):
are clamoring for information.
So we have a lot ofpresentations in the near future
on that and, believe it or not,we're still talking about
buildings under constructionhaving fires.
It seems to be a constant,steady flow of these things
around the world, wherebuildings are not quite fully
protected yet because they'rebeing constructed and a fire
starts either through anaccident, hot work, arson, and
(50:08):
the building burns, or issignificantly damaged because
all of the protection featureswhether it's static protection
in walls and design, firebarriers or sprinkler protection
or early detection on the alarmside and the building burns
because it wasn't finished yet.
We're educating people on thatas well.
You have to be vigilant.
You have to be on top of thissort of thing, prevent the
hazard before it happens orreduce the hazard if you do have
(50:29):
a situation, by keeping up withthese things while the
building's being constructed.
It's a terrible shame.
The building is 98% finishedand they hadn't turned the
sprinkler protection on.
They do a test of the emergencygenerator and the exhaust stack
sets a fire in a void spacewhere there's no detection, no
protection, and it burns theroof off of a building that was
going to be occupied in lessthan a month.
(50:50):
That's a typical story.
So that's another area thatwe're getting out in front of.
So batteries are a big thingwhere we're constantly out doing
information and presentations,and then buildings under
construction.
Nfpa 241 is the standard onthat.
That's another one.
So those are the two biggestthings I've got going looking
into the summer months.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Gotcha gotcha, and I think that's not just a US thing
, I mean in London, I know, andacross the globe, I think these
batteries lithium-ion batteriesbecause they've got so much
potential.
Once they go into thermalrunaway they're going to reach
ignition temperatures of allmaterials around them very
quickly and you've got thatflammable vapor cloud as well.
It's very easy to mix up.
I think there needs to be somesort of legislation around the
(51:29):
type of charger, that you can'tput a six volt charger into a
four volt battery and that kindof stuff so very easily done.
And it's about education aswell, a bit of public awareness.
There are dangers there andalso what we're seeing as well
as you might see, highly likelyseeing in the states as well is
that people are buying batteriesfrom cells individual cells and
then remarketing them,reselling them on ebay and other
(51:51):
market sellers are available.
But yeah, we're seeing a bit ofthat and obviously if they've
had damage before and there's areason why they're not working.
I had a electric bike it wasactually one of these dutch
bikes that has a big basket onthe front and a lady bought it
online market seller and thevery first time she charged it
it went off into thermal runawayand caused a fire, so you have
to be really careful, right?
(52:12):
Anyway, bob, it's beenabsolutely fantastic.
I really enjoyed our chat.
I don't want to stop, if I'mhonest, but it's been really
educational for me, reallyfantastic, and hopefully we'll
have you on again at some point,if that's okay.
And yeah, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yeah, I appreciate setting this whole thing up
being in so eight hours aparttime zone wise and being able to
set this up.
It worked out and I was glad tohelp.
So anytime you need anything,you know how to reach us either
Ken or myself and we're glad tohelp.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Fantastic and, as I said, I'll put all the links in
the podcast notes when wepublish the episode.
But again, I really appreciateyour time.
I say this to all my guests Ifit wasn't for you, it'd just be
me blithering on about not verymuch.
So I really appreciate yourtime, bob.
Thanks very much All right.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Thank you, mike, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Take care.
Thanks very much, cheers.
Hey, thank you for listening toCSI on Fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our web page.
Remember factor non-verbal.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Cheers.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.