Fire Code Tech

Dave Stacy is a fire protection engineer and a member of the fire service. He has a bachelor's of science in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland. In this episode, of Fire Code Tech, we talk about how performance-based design differs from perscriptive design. Dave shares his insight from being a firefighter and discusses how his background impacts his decisions as a fire protection engineer. We talk about when it's appropriate to use performance-based design and what kind of modeling software is needed to meet the criteria of the code. I hope you enjoy the episode with Dave. Learn more about his work here: Performance Based Fire Protection Engineering, PLLC

Tell me about your background and how you got into fire protection? Do you think that having a background in the fire service has a impact have a positive effect What is performance based design and what is that an alternative to? What is the most common system utilized in performance based design? Will you speak a little bit more on the fire protection modeling software? How hard is it to utilize fire dynamics simulator or another PBD modeling software? How much of a role does the authority having jurisdiction play in utilizing performance based design? Do you have an example of a project in which you utilized performance based design? Can you tell me about any hurdles or lessons learned as a fire protection professional? What kind of emerging trends do you see in performance based design? Where does the US rank in performance based design and what other coutries have a big use of PBD? Tell me about what it means to be a professional engineer and how you attained the designation?

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

It's episode three of fire code tech. Today, we have David Stacey. Dave is a licensed fire protection engineer with formal education and fire protection engineering from the university of Maryland. Dave has a unique perspective on engineering design and fire protection for the built environment, because he has experience as a firefighter and has actually had the hands on experience of being at structure fires and live fire.

One of the reasons why I was interested in talking with Dave is he specializes in performance based design and has his own consulting practice. In episode three of fire code tech, we expand on the differences between prescriptive design and performance based design. And Dave takes us through the process of.

Performance based design from start to finish. We had a little bit of trouble with Dave's audio, but I hope you'll stick through the whole interview because Dave has a lot of great takeaways. Don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe to fire code text. So you never miss an episode. Let's dive in.

We'll welcome, Dave. Hey, thanks for coming on the podcast. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me today. Can I get a little bit about your background and, uh, how you got into fire protection? Yeah, so I've been in the fire protection engineering field specifically for about 10 years and, and really my, my overall background has mainly been based around the fire service.

So growing up, I was always interested, you know, becoming a firefighter. I had family members that were in the fire service and that was really. You know what I saw myself doing in life. And, and I continued that I, I, I joined the, the local volunteer department when I was in high school, got into the fire service side out of it.

And then of course, um, through college went, went on and got my education in fire protection engineering and, uh, you know, went into that road as well. So my background in the, the fire protection field is kind of both sides, both the, um, operations and suppression side, active in the fire department, as well as the background on the engineering and life safety side as an.

So you said that you grew up knowing people who were firefighters. And, you know, that is something that interested you from an early age or you were just exposed to that very young. Yeah, absolutely. My, um, my father in particular, he was, um, he retired as a captain from the city of new Haven, um, Connecticut fire department.

Um, and that's, and that's where I grew up and really got started with my, with my career in the, in the Connecticut area. So yeah, I was always around the fire service now, the engineering side, I really didn't. Pick up on until many years later, I really didn't even know that this, you know, field and industry really existed to the extent that it does.

So, yeah, that's, that was my overall start in, in this field. That's, that's interesting because my grandfather was a firefighter and I think I always had some interest because of that, but, uh, he's a firefighter, so it's, it's interesting. That's a common theme with fire protection professionals is they get a taste of.

Uh, the industry or what fire protection is, and then you either do go into design or, you know, you just stick to firefighting or plan review or there's, there's so many avenues. So always find it interesting to, uh, talk about people's origins and, uh, how they got into it. So, yeah. So you see, you said it took you a while to get into the design sort of mindset or think about design as a career.

I find it interesting. I think of professionals, as you know, there's almost, I almost separate the two firefighters and like designers in my head because I, I just think there's such a different mentality in between the physical act of fighting a fire and then like the very. Office space, um, you know, uh, removed from the task design process, which is all, you know, books and computer programs and most engineering designers don't ever see, you know, a real structure fire, you know, even though they spend, they might spend their whole life designing for one, you know, so I guess my question is.

Do you think that, uh, firefighting gives you a unique perspective on, you know, the engineering design process and yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, for sure. Um, I think it does, uh, I think it's a huge benefit, especially in my career development on both sides, but I'm not saying you have to be involved in one or the other to be good in the other profession, but for sure, um, it's, it's opened my eyes, you know, several specifics.

Working within the fire department, like you said, responding to structure fires, responding to these buildings, seeing how these systems, um, integrate together and work and actually provide life safety and fire protect. Under real scenarios has been an eye opener and it's assisted me in the engineering side, even as simple task locating FDC, you know, fire department connection for, okay.

We're, you know, we're doing the sprinkler and layout for this building. You know, we're working in the civil engineer, where's the best place for the FDC, you know, where's it gonna, you know, look good, knock in the way, but also be functional for the fire department, um, and work with our hydraulic outs and.

You know, that's, that's a very small part of design, but, um, even as simple as that has a huge impact to the fire department, there there's buildings we respond to and I'll hear, you know, other firefighters say, you know, why, why, why would they put the FTC here? This makes no sense. How are we gonna get to it?

Or. You know, it's gonna be so difficult for us to have fire department access here and stretch 200 feet of, of line over there to hit the connection. So simple things like that. And then the more technical, more advanced from, you know, which is one of my specialty smoke control systems. The fire department historically is scared of those more technical and, um, You know, active systems we're there's requirements in the code, such as the firefighter smoke control panel.

That of course that the building code requires these four fire departments, but the training and background to teach them and know how to operate them or even what they do. And what they're there for really is lagging behind in my eyes. So being able to be in both positions, I could both provide training and insight to specifically the guys I work with day to day at the fire.

I think that, uh, people like you who are, you know, more knowledgeable in the engineering systems, but also, you know, in the weeds with the, the actual firefighting or needed really liked what you said about the functional aspects of, you know, design. I think that people who only know. 3d modeling or CAD or BIM, you know, and then they go to layout a system and they do something like you said, place the FDC and a location.

That's gonna be a nightmare to get to during a fire. Or another thing I wanted to ask is like, you know, there has to be, that's just one example. There has to be a ton of examples like that. Like I'm thinking about, you know, clearance in a fire protection room is always a struggle. You know, there's always limited space and fire protection is usually, you know, one of the after thoughts for a building, you know, thinking about.

How you're gonna get into a room and, you know, with turnout gear, what does that look like? And providing clearance and you know, where you place these things that seems like it would also be a big deal. Yeah. I don't know. I just wanted to circle back on that topic. Cause I, I think that that's really valuable.

No a hundred percent, you know, another example like referencing in regards to the, the space that the fire department will take to operate two things come to mind, um, you know, high, high rise buildings where we're gonna operate. And when I say we in reference to the fire department, um, off the system, you know, there's.

It's gone back and forth in the codes and as well as local jurisdictions as to whether, you know, those host connections are on intermediate landings or on the main landings. And that actually has a huge impact on fire department operations. For instance, my department that I still operate in, we really lean towards the intermediate landings, cuz it opens up some space on the main landing, um, to operate in a, and have people egress in and off that floor.

So, you know, certain aspects such as that again, with the high rise route. The, the fire command center, you know, a lot of times when we were consulting with architects, they're like, well, is that is the size of this really required to be that large? Why is that to be so big? I could use that space for other other reasons.

And again, having the, if you don't have the fire department knowledge, you could probably say, yeah, I would think just one or two guys need to be in there. Um, you know, they hang out and they talk on the. The the headsets and can communicate to the guys and see what the, the status of the fire alarm system is and the sprinkler system.

But in reality, you're probably gonna have a whole crew in there initially going there to get some information about the fire event and look at the panel, get a game plan together. Um, and high rise, billings, fire operations really slow down. It's not like we're pulling up to a single family house fire, and we go rolling in there and put the fire out as quick as possible.

Obviously there's a lot more risk in high rises. The operations are, are slowed down and very detailed and laid out so that everyone, you know, operates safely high rises seems to be, you know, significantly more complex in every. I'm sure. That's why building owners try to stay away from it as much as they can, if they can.

It's cool to hear things like that. And I wouldn't know that just from, you know, when I talk to architects and they're dev they're designing a fire command center for a high rise building, you know, they're just trying to hit the minimum square footage that's required in the fire code or the building code.

They're not, you. They're not going through all the functional aspects of, you know, in the event of a fire, what does the operation of this room, or what does the programming of this room need to be? So I think that as a fire protection professional, um, people need to be more aware of these kind of things.

So that's really interesting. I like that. So another thing that you spoke about earlier that I thought was great. Was your talk about how, you know, In general, sometimes that firefighters can be aversed to these more technical systems, like the smoke control systems, or, you know, you get, uh, other more complex systems and it can be a problem, or just like the knowledge base for those things can be.

A problem. Yeah. I don't know how I wanted to shape my question around that, but I that's something in my experience, you know, if I'm talking with firefighters before, you know, unless people have, you know, specific training courses on more elaborate system. Sure. You're run of the mill wet pipe system. But I mean, as soon as you get into these more, you know, maybe smoke control, or maybe you got a pre action system or, you know, you get into stuff that's a little bit more in the weeds.

I find. Not just for firefighters, but for fire protection designers or engineers in general, sometimes that knowledge on these systems can be very lacking. So I, I like that point that you made about that and that people need more education and more resources for that sort of thing. So, yeah, I just wanted to circle back and touch on that.

So you are a part of a company now that specializes in performance based design, and I noticed. When we start talking, um, you, you know, are readily available with great information. High rise and you know, this, which seems like a common place where performance based design would be, um, involved. Um, what, what is performance based design and, you know, is, uh, what is that an alternative to?

Sure. So, uh, the main basis we have performance based design is to achieve, um, or exceed the intent of, of, of the code of the billing code and fire code. So of course our fire codes set up prescriptive requirements such as, um, you. You need to provide a wet pipe sprinkler system to this area. You know, this hazard classification, you know, that's very baseline now, again, more complicated things going.

Sort of the smoke control or tenability systems where the code may be a little bit more, um, performance written, not really performance based design, but it's written a performance written narrative in which you have to provide smoke control system that maintains a smoke layer, six feet above occupants walkable.

Height. So, you know, that's section 9 0 9 of the building code specific to an atrium for, for example. Um, so a performance based approach is really when the design team, the architectural team is limited and they cannot meet the intent of the code word for word. Um, so there may be an existing. Condition that's present, um, or something very unique that just doesn't fit within the code structure.

Like the networks of these codes, you know, when they're written versus where we are in design. Now, obviously the buildings we see going up, the modern built environment, um, architects and design teams and developers are, are pushing their, their concepts to the limit. Right. And, and a lot of things just don't fit into the code.

Um, so as a fire protection engineer, We have the capabilities, the tools, and the resources to evaluate these conditions and say, yes, this meets the intent for, for fire. Excuse me, fire and life safety for this specific building. So performance based design, isn't a blanket statement. It's not that oh, for every building we could provide X and be okay.

Um, it's looking at a specific building, a specific project and concern and evaluating holistically against fire and life safety conditions. So for instance, if an architect wants to do something very specific, It's a little bit different from the prescriptive nature of the code. We really have to evaluate everything holistically.

We have to look at egress. Um, we have to look at fire protection. We have to look at smoke controls. We have to consider everything, um, cohesively in order to determine if that's an appropriate solution. That's a great point about, uh, fire protection in general is a holistic approach. Uh, I think that.

Escapes a lot of people. And, and I mean, even when I worked as a fire suppression designer and, um, you know, just knew that part of the business, I didn't realize that either. I think only as you get into the role of, uh, the engineer and you start to, uh, approach the building as an entire system, do you realize that you.

There may be a section in the code that says whether you need a sprinkler system or not, but you know, what else does that trigger that affects egress that affects building height that affects, you know, like your allowable area for certain occupancies. So I like that point about, um, approaching performance based design, um, as a holistic approach to a design process for fire protection engineering.

And, uh, that's really interesting. I like that. Yeah, performance based design is an alternative to prescriptive design, which is the conventional method for design. I think it's very interesting people designing for the new built environment. And I just took a. I tripped to Vegas recently. And, um, yeah, I never thought about performance based design more than when I was walking through these buildings that are, you know, uh, several magnitudes larger than anything I've ever walked in before.

And you know, that I just had the thought that there's no way that these buildings fit into the normal footprint of the building code or the fire code. There's just no way. This is not what people were thinking of when they just started developing these standards. So I think that's really interesting.

You're talking about, you know, the future of the built environment and how performance based design is only gonna be more, um, applicable just due to the, um, fact that building owners and architects. By the very nature gonna be pushing the limits of, uh, of that sort of thing. So I know you touched on some of the types of systems for that could be considered for performance based design.

Um, what's the, what would you say is the most common type of system that is used for performance based design or is it always approached as holistically? Like you said before. And where if you're thinking and performance based design, the whole building is to be considered. Yeah. So it, it typically is always that holistic approach, but specific to a system, um, I would have to say smoke control systems in particular.

Um, now of course, again, with the verbiage of the, of the building codes, it typically says, you know, you need to provide a smoke layer. You know, X feet above the highest walkable floor. So that in its sense, it's kind of a combination of prescriptive and a performance requirement. Um, they're telling you what you have to do.

They're not telling you what that capacity needs to be for that system. So a lot of the, I kind of group performance based design and then the actual fire mowing together. Um, again, even though when we do the fire mowing side for a smoke control system, It, it could potentially be directly allowable by the code.

Um, but smoke control systems themselves are where we utilize some of the tools and approaches of, of performance based design, such as the, the computational fire modeling, biodynamic simulator FDS, which is. The most common utilize one in the states, um, is what you're gonna see. And those are the, uh, analysis and approaches.

I'm not sure if you're software familiar with it, but you'll see floating around the internet and some articles about, you know, smoke control systems or fire modeling, looking at expected temperatures in a compartment or smoke movement throughout a space. So those, those are typically where you'll see, um, the highest.

Utilization rate performance based design. Um, other aspects are, um, and the more common approaches are looking at, um, performance of, um, non-rated structural steel. So perhaps, um, the, the most common in textbook approach would be, uh, like an elevated walking platform and a gymnasium. Uh, again, based on the prescriptiveness of the code, most likely you would need to sprinter protect under that.

Balcony as well as have the structure itself be fire, um, have spray applied fireproofing to match a construction type for the building. But when you consider the overall hazard in those spaces and the potential for a fire event, um, uh, a common approach utilizing a lot of those in universities and other gymnasiums is to do a fire modeling analysis based on again, expected fuel load in that.

Um, which could vary. You could have a small recipient fire, but you could have a large, um, expo, you know, going on in that space. So we could look at those design fires and look at the thermal impact, the thermal insult to that elevated platform and determine would any additional fireproofing be beneficial.

Should the sprinkler protection remain under it? Most likely yes. Um, or would the ceiling protect it? Only sprinkler system be, be appropriate. So those are a couple, um, you know, of the more common ones that jump to the top of my head off the bat. That that's good stuff. I, you know, smoke control would be the one that would come to my mind.

Um, first, since it seems like atria are, uh, very tricky and can kick you over into where a situation where performance based design would be, uh, beneficial very quickly. But I wouldn't think of, um, structural rating for steel columns, um, as something that would be performance based design. So that's really interesting to hear you say.

Yeah, just to talk a little bit, I liked when you started talking about the different kind of, um, programs and, uh, modeling software. Um, so I heard you talk about, uh, FDS and, uh, Pathfinder. Was that the one that you were speaking of? Right. So, yeah, Pathfinder is one of the egress tools. So there there's, there's numerous, you know, validated and verified models that, that we could utilize.

Um, me, myself and, and my. We lean towards FDS and, and Pathfinder. So FDS would evaluate the actual fire conditions and the smoke movement. And then if we need to, we would pair that with the egress analysis, uh, Pathfinder. So again, keeping on that smoke control route, when we're looking at an atrium again, keeping that smoke layer six feet above the highest walkable floor.

Well in a performance based approach, we're allowed to descend that right from the sixth floor to the fifth floor, to the fourth floor. As long as we're showing that tenable conditions are provided long enough for egressing occupants. So say you have a six story atrium, but you only have 500 square feet of walkable space on that highest floor.

And we have a occupant load of X people. As long as we show that X people can safely egress with a lot of conservativeness and safety factors, you know, pre movement, time, time to detection, time to notification, and, uh, a delay in their movement. Speed. As long as we show those people get off that floor.

Why can't we let the smoke layer descend past it? So now instead of, uh, 300,000 CFM exhaust, we could start decreasing it based on. Far down to atrium the elevation of that smoke layer we could descend. Um, so again, that that's the perfect example. And in the prescriptiveness of the code word for word, you have to maintain that smoke layer, um, for a minimum 20 minutes or one and a half times, the egress time, whichever is greater.

So if we had a egress time of 30 minutes, we would need to maintain that smoke layer above the level six for 30 minutes, or if we're able to show that everyone gets off of that floor. And the subsequent floors in five minutes with a ton of safety factors. Um, you know, so we're very comfortable with the approach.

We may be able to reduce that capacity by 50%, if not more, that's the big deal because you know, working with, um, H V a C engineers, those systems are very costly. And those units usually for, um, those H V C systems are large. And so man, I, I bet that people are interested in somebody who can provide solutions like that.

Who can, you know, downsize units and, you know, provide a effective life safety measure. So it sounds like an all around win to me as far as, uh, you. Providing the intent of the code, which is, you know, the code is there for life safety. You know, if you're meeting that, then I see no reason why that we can't be more specific.

You know, other engineering disciplines are, are more specific in their application of their equipment and systems. So I don't see, I feel like that is the future of the fire protection industry is, is more prescriptive methods in order to be, um, design. More to a specific set of parameters instead of the very broad set of.

Code that we are designing it now. Um, yeah. So my other thought on, uh, FDS and Pathfinder is, is how, how hard are these programs? It seems like FDS is, seems like a very difficult program to be able to set up and, and, you know, define all these parameters. Uh, how hard are these programs to learn and to use?

They, they seem like they have a pretty high barrier to entry or a learning curve. Right, right. No, that's, that's a really interesting question and I'm probably gonna surprise you with my response. Um, and my response is that they're relatively easy. Um, In the sense that there's there's new tools that allow it to be easy um, in terms of setting up a model.

Um, so there's graphical interfaces available now. Um, one, uh, again, Pathfinders is a specific graphical interface made by Thunderhead engineering. Thunderhead engineering is a software development company for, for a wide range of engineering disciplines, but they definitely are specific to fire protection.

They have a graphical interface called P. Um, allows you to build geometry, build spaces, import, um, data to, to construct your model and run FDS as the actual simulation software in the background. That being said. Um, you know, you could go ahead and you could download Risin for, they do free trials and you could play around with it.

You could build walls, you could build a room, you could put a burner in there and you could hit run. The difficult portion comes into understanding how FDS works. It's limita, it's limitations. It's how it's verified and validated what I've seen. Um, it's. It's both good and bad. There's a lot of people getting into fire and ERs modeling in the field, um, over the past, you know, five to 10 years because of these tools prior to these tools, uh, what you're referencing is exactly right.

And the background behind it is still correct. Um, the input code for FDS model is basically a text file and it can be tens of thousands of lines or hundreds of thousands of lines of input code. So what does. Basically, you know, you're drawing walls, just like you would in CAD, you're making it three dimensional and it's making that code for you in terms of the geometry mm-hmm.

So, you know, I, I feel very comfortable that most people within a couple days could build a simple room. Again, the background behind it of actually, how do you define the fire characteristics, how you define your fuel properties, how large of a fire you're modeling and all the parameters that go into it, your atmospheric.

Um, you know, your ambient temperature conditions, your boundary conditions, how you're defining your obstructions. Um, you know, there's different ways we quantify 'em. Are we gonna use the actual material properties such as drywall or steel insulation within that cavity? Or are we gonna assume there ADIO or inert surfaces where no heat transfer or limited heat transfer has taken place for the model?

So there's a lot of technical aspects, which is where. The education and, you know, experience comes into play. So again, someone could easily download these programs and start playing around with it and messing with. Um, but the background and the understanding of, of the software is the important part and where you could get into trouble.

That's really great info. You, it sounds like in the only parallel that I could draw to that is you. Uh, when a designer goes to design a sprinkler system and they wanna do a hydraulic model, it doesn't take that long to learn how to put the nodes in the program and, you know, input the data. But I like what you said about, you know, it's all these other factors and parameters that come with time and experience, you know, that you're inputting that, uh, could trip you up and.

Yeah, I like that. What you said that it's not hard in the, in the, uh, thought of the formal aspect of operating the program, the difficult part is, um, where you have to have the engineering knowledge and background to know when to use what parameters and when to use what inputs. So I think, I think, I guess that makes sense, intuitively that makes sense.

That, um, it's, it's not as CRA, you know, technology is just keeps getting easier and easier to use. So as long as you know, uh, what kind of inputs you need, um, that it's not. Extremely difficult. Yeah. I guess I just have seen those text files for FDS and, you know, just thinking like, so I have to learn a coding language to be able to do, uh, fluid dynamic simulations, you know, I'm like, wow, I don't, I would love to, you know, get in and start tinkering around with FDS.

And, you know, I've seen that you can there's versions of it that you can get for free or there's no huge, uh, Licensing, uh, cost for these. So I've had a lot of thought about, yeah, I'd like to get a hold of one of these and mess around, but I'm like, this looks heavy. I don't know if I can just pick this up and start to learn about it, but I, yeah, I really find that interesting in the vein of talking about performance based design, how much does the authority having jurisdiction have to do with performance based design, being an eye option?

Sure. Yeah, the AJ is really. One of the big, um, uh, I'll use the phrase elephant in the room in regards to performance based design. There's certain jurisdictions that are board they've utilized it in the past. They've seen the, um, impact that it has on the projects. Um, and the benefit that it provides while maintaining or exceeding life safety.

So certain HJS are educated on it. They're all about it. Other ones, you know, More the old school mindset of, you know, no, this is the code, this is what we need to do. I wanna see this done. Um, it's really an education thing. So a big part of myself and my firm's, um, task right now is, is education getting out to cities and AJS.

Um, regardless, you know, in addition to architectural firms and engineering firms to, to display, you know, this option, but the actual age chase themselves who are gonna be seeing these come across their desk to say, Hey, you. The our current code systems do allow for this. Historically, it's been a little back and behind, you know, other specifically other countries that have utilized performance based design almost entirely in their code system.

So the, the United States is a little bit behind, but there is room for it. As an alternate means of methods within our code system. So providing that background and that education, and to essentially make them feel comfortable with how we go about these approaches, you know, all the thought process and, um, justifications that go into these are, are what they wanna see and understand.

So for instance, we like to, if a design team is implementing a performance based design, we like to engage the AJ as early as. You don't wanna spend all the time and effort and, and money on this analysis for it to get to the city. And they say, no, we, we never said we were entertained this approach. We don't agree with this approach.

We're not accepting it. So regardless if I've gotten in front of them to do some education, um, independent of a project, if a project does come up in municipality, one of the very first steps is I reach out to them. I say, Hey, this is what we're prosing to do one. Are you gonna. If not, let me have a discussion with you.

We'll we'll, we'll have, um, a good conversation on where this approach applies and how, how it's gonna be performed the next step after that is to actually give 'em a formal document. So for example, for specific to a fire modeling analysis or egress analysis, we call it the design brief. And the design brief goes overall again, the overall intent, why we're doing the, why we're doing this analysis and all the justifications.

So our parameters, and as we discussed earlier, are inputs that we're gonna use for the model. So again, if we're doing an atrium, we're gonna lay out all our design fire scenarios. We're gonna say we're examining this fire because of this reason. We're also looking at a fire over here because of this reason and oh yeah, we're gonna do a fire, um, at this exit location to O.

Exit, you know, location from, from this scenario to make it more demanding. And at that point we wanted to get their buy in and they say, okay, yeah, we're good with this approach. Um, and then we'll go ahead and do the analysis. There's still some AJS, which again, and they're not expected to, right. The AJ isn't expected to, um, know and understand everything in the, in the engineering and construction industry.

They may not be comfortable with fire modeling. They may not have experience with it. So they would have the right within their building code structure. To request a third party reviewer, which really is the common approach. And the, the society of fire protection engineers has a document for guidelines on performance based design, and they explicitly state that you should have a third party review done on any performance based approach.

So that is another. Resource that the AJ has to understand and approve a design. I think that approaching an AJ and, you know, having dialogue with, uh, authority, having jurisdiction and talking through the process of a design solution for any project is one of the most difficult things that we do as a fire protection engineer.

It sounds like, um, with performance based design, it's something that is not only. Unavoidable, but it's the process can't even go through its, uh, full cycle without, you know, the buy in and the intimate working with the authorities. So that's, that's really interesting. I, I think that that's, uh, great to know about.

Yeah. I just think that it's, it's one of the most difficult things to, you know, get buy in on your design, even when your design is. Conventional or maybe just outside what they're used to seeing. So I can imagine that people would, uh, apprehension or just like, you know, not used to seeing these types of models.

So that's really interesting. A hundred percent. Yep. So, uh, the process, you have a, it sounds like you have the process down for. Speaking with the authorities having jurisdiction and, you know, just fleshing out this design process, you went through the steps, you know, have establish a dialogue with the aha.

You know, see if they'll even entertain the idea. You know, if they won't schedule a meeting with them to have a conversation about what performance based design is and what they, what their thoughts on it are, you know, giving them the design brief and sounds like the design brief kind of goes back to.

For, like for smoke control where the code required design fires are and what those parameters are. And then, yeah, I wouldn't have thought about it makes a lot of sense for an aha to have a third party reviewer. I, uh, I mean, yeah, even as somebody who's, you know, working on being a fire protection engineer, I wouldn't know how to review.

Smoke control or, uh, FDS simulation. So, yeah, I can't imagine somebody who was a aha to have the, all the, especially one with not very much experience with performance space design to have all the resources they needed to review, uh, simulation like that. So this is all very interesting stuff. Do you have a specific example of a project that you've done?

Uh, in your career, that was, uh, interesting, that involved performance based design I'm sure you do. Yeah, for sure. Um, new, numerous examples. Um, you know, one of my most prominent ones was, was a major arena, which was employing a smoke control system due to smoke protected seating. Um, so they were reducing the aisle widths a little bit, which triggered the spoke, protected seeding provisions of the building code.

Um, so again, The mechanical engineering team, would've been able to do hand calculations and they did perform those. And the exhaust capacity for that arena bowl was 1.2 million, um, CFM of exhaust. Wow. Now, first, when you have it exhaust that high, like you reference the demand on the mechanical systems that has huge architectural.

Um, impact as well, because when you're exhausting that smoke, you need to make it up somehow, right. Or almost entirely make it up. Typically at least 80% of it needs to be coming somewhere. Um, and they're remaining from building leakage. So if you don't want large shafts, more shafts going through your building and more mechanical systems, you need to provide natural makeup there either through doors on openers or large roll up doors.

Or louvered, um, areas to the exterior. So when the design team was first looking at that, they were like, oh my gosh, like, this is, this is ridiculous. How are we gonna achieve this? You know, this completely messes up our architectural desire. If we have. You know, thousands of square feet of makeup air. So we, we proposed the fire model approach doing a, um, fire model and paired with a egress analysis.

And we, again, in, in this specific example, we were able to reduce it by about 50%. Um, and the final exhaust capacity justified in the, the final rational analysis was, was 600,000 CFM of exhaust. That's a big win for everybody. Not only are you affecting architecture, you're affecting structural because the units are bigger.

You're affecting electrical because units that are that big need more power to feed 'em and you know, that might kick up your feeder size or, you know, it's, it affects all the disciplines to, to be able to provide these, uh, life safety solutions. So that's great. It's awesome that, uh, you're adding value to projects in that.

And, um, I think that that's really neat. Absolutely. Thanks. Yeah. I know that we talked about a little bit before how, you know, it took you a while to get into the mindset of, uh, you know, designer engineering, um, as a young designer slash engineer myself, you know, I I've had, uh, Struggles with, you know, getting into the field and learning and fire protection is, feels like such a very young, um, discipline.

And there still aren't a lot of, you know, amazing, uh, resources or materials, but, uh, can you tell me about a time where you, um, maybe, or what was difficult for you when you first started out in engineering? Or can you remember any hurdles like getting into the design process? I would say for me personally, it's, um, the communication aspect.

So you

part of our field and what a fire protection engineer can, can provide, um, really communication with the design. From the architect to the MEP team, to, to the project stakeholders, um, learning how to communicate, um, you know, explain. What you're doing, why you're doing it and, and having that open dialogue, uh, I feel like sometimes when you're early in your career, you may not feel like it's your place to speak up or, or ask certain questions such as, Hey, even simple ones.

Where are we putting the file alarm panel? These are simple questions that you need to coordinate with the design team. And yeah, as I, when I was a young engineer, again, I've been, I've been in this for about 10 years now. So I think it was harder for me. To do that. And, and what I've learned over the years and, and to the point where I'm at now is like you're saying, because fire protection is relatively new, you know, maybe other professions were, were handling it previously, post a fire protection engineer specifically, um, is we need to be vocal, you know, in kickoff meetings, we have to say, Hey, you need to give me X for the fire command center.

Hey, you guys, I haven't done the analysis yet, but I would expect somewhere around a hundred to 200,000 CFM exhaust for this atrium. Or again, a, a Highrise building with stairwell pressurization. You know, they may not know that early in the design that that's required by the code. So having that communication, not being afraid to speak up, you know, you are the design professional in your industry and it's your responsibility to, to make sure people are on board as early as possible.

Likewise, my, my second. I guess difficulty that I learned is when you make mistakes, you know, we're all, we're all human, right? No, one's expected to be perfect. Well, they, they may want you to be perfect, but you're gonna make little mistakes. You may, you know, notice a small error, maybe used the wrong C factor in your hydraulic Cal, and it didn't fill off, you know, your, your go, no, go on the need for a fire pump or your main sizing.

But that was a small mistake that wasn't represented. Correct. And again, ethically you have the responsibility to bring that up and say, Hey, you know what? Those, those calculations I sent over on Friday were, were incorrect. I, I had a brain fart and I realized over the weekend that I, that I made a mistake.

And please, please see the attach update, um, rather than hiding it and maybe trying to slip it in, in the next submission where it could have a larger impact was really tie into communication. But the overall communication with, you know, your, your intent of, of your role and your scope in the project, as well as.

You know, making mistakes or, or noticing someone else makes some mistakes and, and having that communication. Those are great points, you know, starting out. I think that you think that fire protection is gonna be the most difficult part of your job. It turns out that at the end of the day, fire protection is the easier part of your job and that actually coordinating with other disciplines and working as a team and, you know, being involved.

The, you know, getting stakeholders in a project to work together and communicate is that's the real difficult part. So I like what you said about, uh, coordination and communication and just being in involved with the project team. I think that's all great info. Yeah. I, I definitely could feel that too, knowing in a coordination meeting.

Oh, you know, we need you to move this, um, diffuser because we have to be in this spacing or, oh, you know, we, we need our panel here or we need X amount of space for our fire pump or, you know, all these things require you to speak up and, you know, be the design professional in the situation. So yeah, I definitely.

See what you're saying about that. And I, and I feel that struggle too, even still now. Um, so yeah, that's awesome. And, and, uh, you know, with mistakes and, and calculations and communicating and being ethical, I think that that's, that's a great message. I think that people can learn from. Um, being straightforward and honest about, you know, hydraulic, uh, calculations or, you know, just knowing that it's a life safety system and you have to, you know, for any, for any system, you, you wanna do the ethical thing, but yeah.

Especially in fire protection where we have such a, an onus to be as accurate as possible. Absolutely. Yep. What do you see as a. Do you see any emerg emerging trends in our industry or, or with performance based designs? Or is there anything that you. Yeah, C is developing really, uh, just the overall approach.

Um, so I'm involved with, with several task groups and committees, as part of societies are really again, which, which has my direct interest in educating the AJS, but really working on driving and developing the use of performance based design. Um, so, so for me that that's the trend that sticks out because I'm so intimate with it and, and is my, my go to work type and the work type I enjoy doing the.

Um, of course we are in the design side too, but that performance based approach, again, historically in the us, it it's, it's lacked behind. Um, some other areas SP specifically geographic areas, um, you know, Australia, New Zealand. These are, these are countries that have leaned on performance based design for, for many years.

And they're code systems are pretty much entirely written to support it. Um, What's interesting. This one, this one committee I'm on this one task group is, is comprised of engineers from essentially all over the world. So we have engineers here in the states, um, New Zealand, Australia, um, Europe that are part of this group and hearing how everyone utilizes it a little bit different, the different requirements, um, the stringency of how they do do performance based design.

It varies geographically. And yeah, to be honest, in, in the states, we're probably a little bit behind. Because we're a part of this process and we're working with them. We're. Coherently and, and everyone comprehensively developing essentially a standard. And, and it's the goal is to get it approved as actual standard where people could reference across the globe, Hey, this is how you do performance based design.

This is the overall approach that's approved, um, that everyone should be following. So trend wise, um, yeah, would be a little biased toward, towards that performance based route. But, but that's where I see. Going, especially here in the states. That's great stuff. Of course, you, uh, are familiar with, you know, what you are involved with on a day to day basis.

That only makes sense. That's interesting. I meant to bring that point up earlier when you, uh, had talked about internationally where the us stands with performance based design and you mentioned a couple countries, and that's what I meant to ask earlier is, you know, Other countries are more, uh, forward with performance based design or, you know, over in Europe.

Do they, is it more common? It seems like, uh, I just spoke with somebody recently who does, um, research and sort of performance based design slash egress design, and he's in New Zealand. So that's, that's funny that you mention, mention New Zealand, but. Yeah. So what other countries are, you know, really progressive in as far as performance based design?

Yeah, those are really the big ones. Um, you know, Sweden, um, Australia, New Zealand, um, Canada is, is probably similar to us. They're, they're dabbling with it and it's becoming more mainstream. Japan has done a, a good amount of research and development of it. So really, I think you you'll find, you'll find it being utilized, you know, in, in some extent, across across many, um, Many countries and, and I'm not in no way saying the United States is behind these countries.

It's just, you know, we have the tools and the approaches available to us. It's just not as common in our day to day design process. It's not like we're behind in the regard that, you know, we couldn't do it. It's just not as ingrained in our codes and standards is kind of what you're referring to. Correct.

Um, so I see that, uh, I was looking at your LinkedIn and I see that. A PE can you, can you talk a little bit about, um, what it is to be a PE and how you got your PE? Yeah, sure. So, um, I do have that other disclaimer, they have been changing some of the requirements specifically over the past couple years, but, um, when I was pursuing it, um, and, and still to this day, the first thing is an ABET accredited engineering degree.

Um, without, without that ABET accredited engineering degree, you have to show, you know, pretty extensive, um, years of service, um, in your field in order to sit for the PE exam. So. Starting back from, from my education, I went to university of Maryland, um, and got my bachelors science in fire protection engineering.

Um, so plug for Maryland, they're, they're one of the only undergraduate programs in fire protection engineering. That that is a, the accredited, um, and you know, we talked a lot of people in the, in the architectural engineering field. They didn't even know fire protection is a degree. Um, but it's a, it's a.

You know, recognized and accredited degree program, you know, your, your major programs are Maryland. Um, Oklahoma state, of course, Worcester Polytech, um, has a master's program, um, E EKU. University of new Haven has fire science. I don't believe they're, they're accredited in engineering, but they're more the arson investigation side.

So these schools are available. Um, here in North Carolina, you have UNC Charlotte, they have a fire science technology program, um, actually fire engineering technology. So these programs are out there. So yeah, I got my, got my bachelors science from Maryland. I then, you know, transitioned both into the, again, the fire service.

I became a career firefighter and also was working, um, as a consulting. Um, to start gaining my, my experience. So once you, once you have your degree again, this is where the change happened at the time in North Carolina. You had to show four years of progressive engineering experience before sitting for the exam.

So what that means is you're working under a licensed engineer and you're, you're going through development of a young engineer. So from, you know, people giving you simple task, um, from, you know, design work or co consulting, you know, Working your way through the code system to over those four years, the, the engineering board, um, wants to see you progress.

So you may start some project management. You may be bringing in your own clients and projects, and essentially they, they most likely wanna see you taking a project from conception to delivery. So obtaining the client right in a proposal, doing the most of the work besides the review, and then submitting that as the final deliverable.

So that's what they wanna see as progressive engineering experience. So once I hit that four year mark, um, I was then eligible to sit for the exam and, uh, without, until I was studying for about five or six months, pretty diligently to make sure I passed on the first time. Um, I will say Marilyn prepared me.

For that exam, but really a lot of the, a lot of the stuff you will learn in your actual career. So actually being in the field, doing the work is where you pick up a lot of that stuff. And what's good about fire protection is, you know, it wasn't like, uh, studying for, uh, um, dynamics exam in college. You, you enjoyed getting into the codes and, and the fire protection handbook.

From the SAP and the NFPA going through those and, and picking up things, being like, oh, that that's interesting. You know, I, I, I forgot about that or I never heard about this approach or this calculation. So it was actually fun studying, studying, working through problem over that time period and, uh, passing the, um, today.

Um, you know, so that was. Three or four years ago to today, I believe you could actually sit for your PE exam whenever you feel ready. So as soon as you get your degree, it's accredited. I believe now you're approved to take the exam, but they won't license you. They won't give you that certificate until you show that experience.

I, I believe that's how most engineering boards are, are handling that now. Um, And fire protection, I think was one of the last disciplines, but they just are going to computer based, uh, this year in 2020. So it's gonna be a computer based exam, which me personally, I, I don't know how I would've performed on that, whether it been better or worse, but I was on the old paper system, the eight hour exam.

Um, and I guess I, I missed a key step, which would be your, your FY, your fundamentals of engineer. Um, it's the first test you need to take before being eligible for your PE. So your fundamentals of engineering is more of a overview of the overall engineering curriculum. So although me, myself and others studied specifically fire protection, it, it was pretty much a mechanical engineering path where.

Of course retainer, statics, dynamics, chemistry, physics, one physics, two, um, differential equations, all those fun classes, uh, that some of them I had to take twice but that's what fundamentals of engineering test is. Once you pass that, there wasn't a time. You, you could take your. Um, you know, in the spring and then take your PE that fall as long as you met your years of experience, but those were the two, the two requirements that you had, the two tests that you had to pass.

I looked out recently, I got to take the last paper exam for the PE and I, uh, I passed my PE this last October. So I was pretty excited that I don't have to, uh, Study for it again, and try to learn what they changed in the, uh, between the computer based and the paper based exams. Um, I, I imagine it would be harder to take the computer based because you're not allowed to bring in any references, you know, for the paper based.

Everybody brings in crates full of books that they've highlighted and tapped and that's right. So I imagine that's gonna be a, a much different experience for people taking the computer based.

that's right. Yeah. So I think it's interesting. Yeah. About the decoupled. Um, they they've, in some states they've decoupled the, uh, experience requirement from the, uh, um, being able to take the PE. So yeah, like in Oklahoma they have decoupled the, you know, you don't have to have your four or six years of experience.

In order to take the PE. So even though I still need, you know, uh, four months, three months to get the experience all needed for the PE, I was still able to take the PE. So that's really nice. Yeah. I think that. There's like 15 to 20 states that have that, the experience decoupling now. So that's pretty neat.

Yeah. Okay. It's different. Uh, there's so many differences at each state board. You know, I spend a lot of time researching state boards for, you know, what, what requirements I meet and, you know, being, uh, I know that. Maryland is a, a ABET accredited engineering degree, which is different than, uh, okay. State or Oklahoma state university is a, uh, ABET accredited engineering technology degree, which, um, some states see.

In different lights. Um, they credit you for more experience for the engineering degree over the technology degree. So, yeah, it's interesting. I only knew of even being in a fire protection program, I only really knew of Maryland's program and Oklahoma state's program. And since I've been outta school, I've looked at, you know, you named a couple of master's degree programs like the Cal Polytech.

And the, uh, the WPI and, um, some of those other schools. So yeah, it's, it's very tight knit, um, for education and for everything else, really for fire protection. So, Dave, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate your time and for sharing your great information about performance based design and your career in fire protection.

I just wanna thank you. And, um, say I really enjoyed having you. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I enjoyed it as well. And, um, thanks for opportunity to share my experience and insight. And, uh, yeah, I look forward to the, the future of the career and, and, um, And the success of your podcast as well. So I'm excited for the other episodes.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes end standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Rino is a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand. Rino has a bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. in civil engineering with a specialty in evacuation modeling and human behavior in fire. On this episode of Fire Code Tech, we talk about emerging technologies and their impact on fire protection research. Rino has been published in more than 20 scholarly journals. If you want see Rino's speech at NIST or any of his other content, you can find him at http://www.lovreglio.info/.

Tell me about your background in fire protection? What are you currently in the process of researching / what is your research specialty? What is preevacuation time and can you explain your research around that? What is virtual reality and augmented reality and what implication do they have in fire protection? Tell me about your experience with BIM modeling? Can you tell me about the research process from begining to end? How does one go about being published in a scholarly journal? Can you take me through your day as a researcher and as a professor? What piece of advice do you have for individuals getting into fire protection? What degree program are you involved in at Massey University? Tell me a little bit more about your speach for NIST?

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the.

You're in the right place. Welcome to episode two of fire code tech. Today we have Jiro LA Reio, but he goes by Reno. For short Reno is a lecture at Massey university in New Zealand. He has a PhD in civil engineering, within emphasis in human behavior and fire and egress modeling. On episode two of fire code tech, we get into what it means to be a researcher and the researching process.

Also, we talk about being published in a scholarly journal. And what it takes to be a part of this collaborative process. Reno has been published in more than 20 scholarly articles. Reno's research takes him to the intersection of new technology and fire protection. Some of the technology Reno uses for the advancement of his research is virtual reality, augmented reality and machine learning.

We talk about what it means to BIM model and some other really fascinating simulation programs. Don't forget to follow fire code tech on social media and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Let's get started with a show. Well, hello, Reno. What's going on today? Thank you for inviting me. Everything's good from DC.

We have a wonderful day. That's awesome. So what are you doing in DC? I know that you're a professor at the Massey university college. I am here visiting N the, especially the far division, because I work with them on, uh, research. Focusing on wildfire is research is, uh, led here by Dr. Erica Kowski and yes, my university mass university allowed me to.

Do this visiting and would like also to thanks my, my department, the school of built environment for make this possible and has been exciting, uh, adventure in the last two months, because we have done so many cool things with the new, fresh data from wildfire research. And it's kind of hot topic, as you can imagine.

Definitely. I, uh, I can imagine that it's probably, uh, never been, uh, more. Uh, impactful time to be involved with wildfire research with all of the, uh, rampant fires, uh, going on, um, in Australia, it's been a, a big topic for global news. I imagine that's given a lot of fuel to the, uh, proverbial fire, uh, the people who are researching and studying about that.

No, it's really interesting. And we are so excited to publish as soon as possible. The funding that we got. We believe that we can do, we can give a really great impact on society. And that's the exciting part of our research is really applied and can be used quite easily by everyone around the world.

That's great. Well, tell me a little bit about your background for the people who don't know, um, maybe a little bit about your education or your upgrade or upbringing, so people can get a little idea about you and about, uh, how you got. Into fire protection. I started studying, uh, more than 10 year university studies more than 10 years ago might say also more than 10 kilograms ago.

And, and I start as a civil engineer. I knew that my soul was an engineering, so, and so I managed to get to university. I was the first in my family to go to univers. And a bit by curiosity and by chance, I end up doing, uh, a degree in civil engineer engineering as a undergrad. And then I decided to do also master focusing more on structural engineering.

But then towards the end of, uh, of the degree, I realized that all the mathematics stuff was cool, but I didn't really want to do the job in my life. And then they had the chance. To attend a couple seminars, one, it was done my ex supervisor, Dr. That is in Sweden now alone university. And he was talking about foreign engineering modeling and it was like thinking that's so, so I decided that, uh, I asked him if there was any chance to do my master thesis on this topic.

And then we managed to work together on this topic. And then, uh, this research. Bigger and bigger in terms of my master thesis. I had many other professor involved professor lawyer from Spain, professor D professor co from Polytech. So it was a really exciting time during my master. And when I finish it, I had a scholarship at, uh, my home university.

Polytechnical. And that was my kicking start officially to do serious research in fire engineering, focusing mainly on, uh, Eva bodily. And since 2012, I've been doing that as part of my life. That's really exciting. That's that's, uh, it's interesting to hear you talk about, um, how, uh, you started out in civil engineering and, you know, have transitioned into more of a, uh, evacuation or fire protection engineering role.

Um, is I just wanted to ask in the us it's, it's common. It's very common for other. Engineering disciplines to filter into the fire protection engineering field. But, uh, usually they go from a discipline, like, uh, mechanical or, uh, maybe sometimes electrical only rarely have I, uh, seen people come from a civil background.

Is that, is that more common in other parts of the. From my experience. Uh, there are a lot of people like I'm working Zealand, and I can tell you I've been talking and meeting with a lot of people, uh, that work in the field. And I can say that there is a lot of people from structural background background that they swap on this field kind, help quite a lot.

To spread the news that, Hey, there is also this field among my students, because it's a really exciting topic. I might say that in Italy, it's reasonable that someone with a sibling background start doing something like that, but there is also mixture of, uh, people from mechanic engineering because there is, as you might know, there is a lot of, uh, computational Floyd dynamics.

And there are a lot of people in mechanic engineering that can give a lot and apply a lot. Intuitively, it kind of makes sense that most engineering disciplines, I mean, if you're in some sort of engineering, you could make your transition into fire protection. And, but, uh, yeah, I was just kind of interested about that.

So if you talked a couple times about research, um, will you talk more specifically on some of the, some of your interests in research and some of the topics that you. Are currently in the process of reach researching, of course, focus. My research is try to understand how people behave during emergency.

And I started my research focusing on, uh, fire buildings and, uh, something that is really exciting for me is try to understand what are the factor affecting the decision of people to, uh, for instance, to start evacuating, to choose between different evacuation route. And, uh, actually make choice about how they moving the space and how they interact with the space.

I've been really lucky because I'm playing with this kind research. Quite a lot for me is really a game, my work. And I've been trying to make this investigation and using, uh, drills video using, uh, new technology, like virtual reality technology, augmented reality in which you can expose people to. Or simulated emergency and try to understand how they will behave.

And it's really exciting because you can do so many variation of the emergency and try to understand why people make such a decision. And I believe that this new technology have a really huge potential for training purposes. Because you can use the virtual experience to teach people what's the best things to do in case of emergency.

And for instance, last year, we did a really exciting study showing that, uh, doing training with virtual reality, especially for, for extinguishing is much more strong in terms of retaining information compared with the traditional videos. So we. I'm promoting quite a lot of this new technology, because I see a lot of potential for them.

That's really neat. Uh, you touched on a, a couple topics there that I'd like to go a little bit more in depth on, but, um, yeah, I'd read a couple of your, um, research articles and, oh, it seems like more than a couple of them talked about, uh, pre evacuation, uh, movement or factors contributing to pre evacuation.

So I think that's really interesting. In my schooling experience, we had a life safety class and, um, in one of the classes, we had a voice evacuation drill where our teacher would read off a set of instructions and then record how we exited the building. By using Cardinal directions to, it was interesting because everybody, you know, took their own, um, path out of the building.

And yeah, I just, that's my experience with Pree evacuation and egress modeling a little bit, but yeah, I just wanted you to speak. A little bit more maybe on pre evacuation and some of the factors that are involved with that. Cuz I know that you've spent some time there been one of the, uh, most exciting part of my research on, uh, pre, uh, study.

And I started when I was in Sweden, working with my ex supervisor Ronk and uh, professor Daniel Nielsen. I say that we are lucky because we have been stealing Daniel Nielson from Sweden. Now we have 18 New Zealand, so it's much easier to do research with him. and, uh, we, we started doing research there because they managed to collect data 20 years ago.

And, uh, I was really fascinating. Wow. To have the possibility to work with this data from, uh, evacuation drills in a cinema. It's exciting because you can see that the, that stage is really characterized by uncertainty. Cause people don't have information, they don't have a clue about what is going on. So you see that when they start getting information, this can be done using alarms of, uh, through social interaction.

They understand that there is something going on. You can see that, or they can shift from, uh, their normal state. That is the state. Before there is an emergency to their pre equation St. Which they try to understand what's going on. Then they make the decision that, okay, it's time to get up of here. And then eventually they prepare themselves and then start to move finally, towards the safe exit at the, we can say, this is the end of the provocation time.

And then they start moving towards the, towards a safe place that can be outside the building or inside the building. Depends on what's the strategy. And for me, it was really exciting because we can use a lot of modeling tools, traditional modeling tools to investigate the weight of environmental on the decision making process.

And just lately we have been doing, uh, really exciting, uh, research using even machine learning. And this is a research that we have started with, uh, uh, uh, Dr. Colleague of mine, Dr. Z from university of Florida. And we tried to use the same dataset and see how much can we get things better with machine learning?

How much can we learn better using this new mining data mining technology? So it's still an open question for me and I'm trying to use. New technology, new stats, new tools to dig deeper and deeper and even doing new drills through mass university had the possibility to do really amazing equation drills in which we had the chance to investigate equation pre equation behavior in our mass library or many other retirement homes in Zealand.

So it's something that is growing. I just need to find time to sleep less and write more about it. I hear you, man. That's exciting. It sounds like you are really into the cutting edge of technology. It's you know, you've, you've hit a lot of. Big terms. And I, you know, from reading your research a little bit, I can tell that, you know, you're into big data machine learning, you know, VR, AR BIM, just to transition a little bit, you spoke a little bit earlier about virtual reality and augmented reality.

What kind of. Applications do those have for egress modeling and, you know, I, I know you've already talked about a little bit how they are effective in drills and how they, um, are really effective modeling, uh, techniques, but yeah. Will you speak a little bit more on, you know, what is VR and AR. Perfect now virtual reality.

The difference virtual reality is when we have a complete immersion in a digital world, we can have a not immersive virtual reality. And that's what we display on a screen. Basically, when we play any video game, we have experience of non immersive virtual reality. Instead when we put those fancy goggles and we get part of the game.

Immers in the game, we have the so-called immersive virtual reality instead of augmented reality is the visualization of digital content in the real space. And the easiest way to explain that is to think about holograms around us. One of the easiest example is Pokemon go in which we have Pokemon bouncing around our.

Or even the reversing camera of your car, if you think is a perfect example of, uh, augmented reality, because generally you have the visualization of digital lines that help you to make your own decision. So it's a technology that has been there for a while, and it's really interesting to use this technology for equation risk, because we can use virtual reality to test different things.

We can, for instance, test, if they have equation sites, we put in a. Actually are perceived by people and well understood by people and then eventually fulfill their proposal. So we can make a lot of investigation to find out which combination of vocation signs are the best to guide people in a building.

We can use, uh, virtual reality also to investigate human behavior. Try to understand how people make decision or they get out a building or from a tunnel. Even more, we can use virtual reality to train people so we can give them a package in which they try, uh, software simulation, which they try to use patients system like, uh, for extinguisher.

And they learn through the process by doing mistakes. And I can tell you. These information, they get really stuck on the demand mind of, uh, of the people that do the train. So there is a lot of potential potentiality for virtual reality. It's also good to let people that dunno anything about equation, to be part of the equation and show simulation.

Of what will happen if there is an emergency in a building, so you can emerge them in the emergency and show them the results of patient simulation run with a computer. Augmented reality is pretty much helping in the same way can be used basically in all the fields. And we have been doing a bit of lit review about what has been done so far.

This is the work that I've done with colleague from the center.

I don't remember the name of government organization of Canada for research. Sorry. And, uh, we have been, uh, doing research, a leader to review and try to understand, uh, what are the application. Augmented reality for equation, uh, proposes. And this research hopefully is gonna be out soon showing all the potential of this new emerging technology.

That's really interesting. Yeah. I, I've definitely thought of Pokemon go as augmented reality in some other games as augmented reality, but I've never thought of, you know, the lines on your backup camera, I guess that is augmented reality. Those lines are not physical. It's just a projection onto, you know, What is actually there.

Yeah. So I think that's a, a key factor. And you know, we're talking about VR and AR you know, virtual realities, that's a full computer, full digital experience. And that augmented reality is kind of that pseudo. Full digital, you know, you're one foot in the virtual world and one foot out. So I think that's really interesting and I definitely see a lot of promise in that area.

And, you know, in the next 10 years, I can only imagine what we're gonna be able to do with that technology it's it's in its infancy, for sure. Um, so that's really interest. I wanted you to speak for just a moment on BIM BIM content or, you know, I see that, uh, one of your classes that you've taught or maybe that you're still teaching is a BIM class at Massey university.

Could you just speak a little bit on, uh, BIM and, and your stance on BIM and what BIM is and that sort of. BM stand for building information modeling. And if you Google it, there are many definition about what ism and if it's it's 3d. So in short terms, short definition, I can say that is, uh, database building database with all the information that you can have about that building.

So not just about the information about. The number of door, what's the furniture that you get in that or many beams, but also the information about when those elements will get in place. And what's the cost of those elements and what's their life, uh, time of these elements in the building. Also all these information, there are connected with a visual.

The model that allow you to investigate from a 3d point of view, all this information. Uh, people talk about BIM in terms of a pro process, because if you start sharing information such a, a new way, you can, uh, modify all the way we run. Construction, uh, work in of programming in of, uh, uh, cost estimation.

And that's why I'm teaching this in degree at university in construction tool that. Can make a big difference in, uh, in the process of, uh, construction, simplify things, reducing a clutch that reducing clashes, reducing, uh, error, reducing redoing, and so killing the costs and improving the quality of the built environments.

Definitely. I totally agree with you. Uh, yeah, my, uh, I've had my experience with BIM is that it's excellent for coordination. You know, I have, I have experience with Revit, which is, uh, it's a big, um, BIM tool and yeah, I like what you said about, you know, it's not just that it's a door, but it's more information about the door.

How much does it cost? You know, what is the maintenance items with the door? You know, coordinating the door with the architectural features, all of these. Pieces that play into each other. BIM is not just, you know, the door or the light switch or the wall. It's all of the things that connect with that. The potential is great because also for management of the building, in terms of facility management, the building model that then we kinda swap the name in a set information model is a key.

Set of information. If we want to maintain a building and if we want to make a change in the future of the building, and even at some point, when we want to demolish the building, we can have enough information to do those process in a really effective way. The important things, the same is to maintain the, maintain the information.

Whenever there is a change in the real building we need. Make this change also in, in our data set, we start in fact calling. We are, so if we push this so much, we can call it digital twin and we can start using this digital twin to do a lot of accurate assessment about what is gonna happen. I see what you're saying.

Yeah. And that's a constant struggle with the building owner, um, is keeping the model up to date. You know, oftentimes you'll get a set of drawings from a building that was constructed, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, you know, 80 years ago. And the as-built drawings are from the initial construction and, you know, You or don't have reliable information about what the existing state of the building is.

So that updating the building, uh, model and just having that, I like that I've never heard that term before digital twin. I think that's interesting. About how you can have a mere image effectively of a building's content and how that helps with maintenance and just, yeah. All, all through the life cycle of the building, from the construction to the maintenance, to the demolition.

That's my goal. PIDE work in terms of my teaching. Try to convince my student first and push them to convince their employer. That that's the future. I believe it. Yeah, it's, it's remarkable that, you know, even in the short span of my career, I've seen the industry, the construction industry lean into BIM and you know, more 3d coordination.

And so I think that that's infinitely interesting and it's the inevitable direction of the field. So I, I think that's great for somebody that's not. Um, involved in research or scientific study, will you explain like the workflow of research or, you know, how do you go from an idea of a topic all the way into, you know, formulating a research plan and you know, or, you know, how does it, how does it get from step one to, you know, publishing.

This process is, uh, really changed depending on the level of your career. Let's get to the case in which you're a PhD student, and you're just a beginner with a research topic. Generally, you have a broad. Thinking about, I want to investigate the field and then you start scoping down about what you really want to investigate and the best way to have an understanding about what is going on.

And what has been done so far is to do a comprehensive to review. So generally this is always one of the first step in a research, unless you are already an expert in the field. So, you know, Because you've been reading the last 10 years, what is has been done. So if you're beginning, that's the best way.

Read, read, read, try to understand what has been done. Try to understand what has been the advantage of new approaches, this advantage of these new things, and try to identify the called research gap. That means that there are space in which we don't really know what is going on. We don't really have hands.

Or we know in certain condition. So we, we won't understand much more about that. And whenever you are cap to identify the research, that's the starting point, build your work. And most of the time we try to bring light, collecting new data or developing new experiment that give us the inform. That we want, and then do a bit of analysis about the data we collect and finally provide an answer.

That's the exciting part then for me, the boring part is to write what you, and this is the tedious part of my students write down. They are really scared of writing report or journal article because it's, if you think. Explaining in a really clean and, uh, simple way what you have done to everyone else seems easy, but it's not that easy.

In fact, writing the first half, it might take even couple of weeks, three weeks, a full months, and then. You ask all the collaborator to read it. You see that among all the people that have been involved already in the research to read it. And they start saying, you know, don't really understand what you're trying.

So it's really exciting to see that writing is really challenging, but of course, then you get used to it and you stopped getting better and better. But, uh, when you are a PhD student, and I might say that in my case, it was. Biggest struggle. And I must acknowledge the help of my ex supervisor that were nice enough to help me improving and not me after reading my first.

Yeah, I guess it makes sense. You know, you have all this process and this research and you find, you know, oh, here's the conclusion. And then you have to take this large abstract, you know, cutting edge technology idea or conclusion, and you have to. Distill it down to, you know, the salient points or, you know, the, you know, the real meat of it.

And so I'm sure that's as much of an art as finding out the topic to research or providing, you know, a meaningful conclusion is being able to convey that idea in a way that is effective. You know, I never thought about that and this is just outweigh. Because once you have a piece of paper that is written, it's still not real science in the sense that you need to try to publish it and that's can become really challenge because you need to submit it and go to a peer review process.

I know that you've been published a bunch of times, it looks like you've been published, you know, uh, what was that looks like you have in terms of journal people, almost 30 journal papers. I wanted you to talk about. Little bit on what it is like to submit a scholarly article to a journal paper. And yeah.

What is, what does that look like? Cause I, I really have no idea working in the commercial fire protection, um, you know, uh, what that looks like. So the process is, uh, it's, uh, that you try to get the best that you can get in terms of shape of your ma. Not just in terms of writing, but also figure that are really good in terms of resolution, in terms of what they explain in terms of, uh, research process that you have done or results.

And also in terms of work in making sure that there is no type, um, must confess that I, one of the worst type of makers in the history. So you have to make sure that the text is. Not perfect, but almost there. And then you submit it to a journal that you believe where the article might fit. And there are a lot of tools from severe Springer that help you to select what's the best journal.

Another way to identify the best journal is to which particularly you're been citing quite a lot, which from which journal. They are from, and probably that means that this journal is kinda a carry on, on a research topic that has been really important for the journal. So once you select the journal, then you need to write an cover letter, explain it for the editor in why this new piece of research matter, why you wanna submit it to the journal.

So explain the rational. And, uh, submit it. And then what happen is that, uh, either the editor in chief or the associate editor is the one that read. Scan is journal. Try to understand what is talking about. If the quality is good enough for a journal publication. And after that, he decide to assign this. If he pass all the checks, you know, uh, he decide to send, uh, this journal for peer review, at least a couple, two, three external reviewer that are generally academic people or people from the industry that are really expert on that topic.

And ask them to go through the paper and advise in terms of, uh, quality of the, of this piece of research. And this process is generally blind with the reviewer and, uh, it can be also double blind in, in the, in the terms that the reviewer doesn't know who was written. Article and the work of the reviewer is to read all the paper and try to understand if it's acceptable for publication, if it required minor change, or if require major change, if it's not suitable enough or many different reason to journal and that provide the information to check.

And then the editor is the one moderating, try to understand what's the best decision to take using the advice of those reviewer and make the final decision. So if the editor decide to review, to go for, with the review process, he submit all the comments received by the reviewers, to the outdoors. They try to address it.

They send it back to the journal, edit it or send it to the reviewer. The reviewer, try to understand what have been to change and they provide again another decision. So this process can go in a loop awfully for two, no more than two or three times. And until the time the decision has been made, and there are some process, I have an example, which I, a journal paper under review for two years.

Wow. Or others that instead they were under review for. Three four months. It really depends on what's the situation of the review process. So my advice for all the researchers to be patients and appreciate all the work of the reviewer and the editors, because it's all voluntary job, no one is paying for you.

I'm working as an 80 and as a editorial board for several journals in the far engineering safety science for technology and far safety. And as far safety journal, and I can say that all this work is done by, for free. So everyone need to be patient and be respectful of the work done by others. That's really interesting.

I, I did not know anything about that. That's. That's super fascinating to hear you talk about just the process of selecting the journal. I, you know, I didn't think about the fact that, you know, you have to be selective about what journal you're submitting to, and it's a process of feel like you were saying, finding out the references and, you know, uh, going back and forth on.

Uh, what journal might be interested in type of work you're doing. And I found that. Really, uh, interesting. And I'd never imagined that it would be such a collaborative process, uh, back and forth. If you will. I, in my mind, as somebody who's uninformed, I would've imagined it was here's my work, you know, if you like it, You put it in the journal, if not, you know, uh, you don't put it in the journal, but it's man, it sounds like it's a, it's a huge collabora, a collaborative process.

And, um, it's really more of a back and forth, a tennis match of, you know, uh, making this work together. It can be also frustrating game match and, uh, expression. If you are at the beginning, you don't really know the system and. And I can remember the first review process in which I was reading it and say, I close my computer and try to read it in a week because now I'm too pissed off with everything that I go.

I can imagine that, uh, man, I, I can imagine being impatient, waiting for a month, let alone for years. I can't. I would just be man. I would think that would be really difficult to, but I, but I like what you said about respecting the editor and that they're doing. Of their own volition and on their own time.

And you know, they're doing it for free, so you have to have a underlying respect for the editor and for the journal itself. So I thought that was, uh, a wise thing to say. So that's interesting. Really cool. Um, That was great. What does that average day look like for somebody who is a teacher and a researcher and somebody who also edits for, uh, scholarly journals?

What is, what does your day look like? Take me through, take me through average. My, my day, I must university start going to office, try to smile to everyone. and. Because, you know, I'm Italian, so I need to make coffee to everyone there. You, you go desire coffee, and that's the way to kick in and start the day.

And generally the, the first things that it will work is check my emails and try not to freak out with the amount of emails that every. And, uh, because you receive email from students, you receive email from colleagues and other work things and meetings. And so I try to schedule a bit, what's the goal of the day.

Generally I give all the, if I receive email from students to answer them and especially if the some deadline is approaching and, uh, if it's a day more focused on researching, try to do. A bit of more research that can be that analysis that can be writing or reviewing a, a piece that has been already reviewed by someone else.

And so try to make the changes that have been suggested. And generally then I try to have a break for lunch at least to get a bit of oxygen, light lunch, bit of salad, trace. To have a walk to refresh my brain in the afternoon, I try to keep doing things and I try to slowly start doing something that is lighter for me in terms of less demand.

Like the writing is things that I must do the morning because my brain is rested enough to do it's such intensive work in the afternoon. I try to do more soft work there can. For me, like, uh, doing data analysis, they can be finished reading and answering all the other emails until the moment in which I understand that my brain is off in that case, it's better to turn anything goes.

And go home, but it happens quite often that over evening after dinner, I keep reading emails for emails or doing a bit of work thinking about what can be something cool to do in the future, stuff like that. I must say that doing, being a research and a teacher is not a job is a lifestyle because even sometimes it's really difficult to switch off even during the weekend.

I imagine it sounds like it is a lifestyle, you know, the dealing with the students and the research. And I'm sure it's hard to turn that off. That's interesting. It sounds like you're a morning person like me cuz I front load all my brain heavy work in the morning too. Cuz that's when all my best energy is.

So I thought that was kind of funny cuz I definitely feel the same way. Try to get the most grueling task out in the morning. Gym can help as well before going to work to it's like another shot, like coffee to really have the brain super active and capable to do all the extreme. Work, it need to be done.

That's good advice. I like that. I like that. So I wanted to kind of get into some, uh, professional development questions and, you know, just kind of sounds like you've had some experience in the industry and it sounds like you deal with students frequently and had that you have some good advice. So I just wanted to plug your brain a little bit for, uh, professionals and young professionals.

I heard you give a couple pieces of advice for students in our interview, but what would you tell somebody getting into the industry for fire protection or for studying, uh, fire safety or for researching fire safety? Do you have any piece of advice that you would think about given somebody like that is a really broad topic?

So my advice is to find something that make you a passionate. because if it's you tackle it, like, again, you don't go any longer at work exam. I need to do that simulation there. I need to do that. Try to find something that is really exciting for you. Yeah. Money is important. Selecting based on what is gonna be your salary is important, but it's always good to find something that make your life interesting that make your working experience interesting, because you're gonna spend most of your.

In front of the computer at least 40 hours per week. So it's really important. And there are so many cool things that you can do in, uh, in the far protection fields from simulation and modeling to that can be applied for far, uh, far modeling that can be applied for ion modeling or passive protection system or coordination of the project.

So there are so many things, and my advice is always to find something that. Really make us vibrating inside. That means that it's the right things. And you feel really that you're doing something that you really care and that makes your life and working experience much better. That's awesome. I like that.

Yeah. I think that, you know, one of the best pieces of advice that I got, you know, his, uh, You know, not only is it important to think about, you know, money seems nice, you know, when you're a student, you know, not making very much, but, uh, it's important to choose a career where you'll have good mentors and you will enjoy the work that you're doing, because like you said, yeah, that's your life.

The working exactly the work environment is perfect things to look at. It's not just a matter salary. You need to be happy. Collaborate with your people at work, work with them and find the way to get something done and something that can be even cooler done. And definitely, and I've heard you say more than one time that you've had some good mentors and good people who are helping you, uh, develop.

So I think that that's always a important, important thing. So is there anything, is there anything that you wish you would've known before you started down your current career path that you know now, but you didn't know when you started out, is there anything specific. Oh, it's difficult to say. And generally, I would say before I started doing my research, I wish I knew more math , but it's never enough.

I can say mathematics be to have a mathematics background. Statistic background is always a good thing, at least for what I do. And I believe that's also for any person working in the. In engineering field and I keep studying it. I'm not trying to say that I'm always trying to learn new things and try to apply new things.

And that's the exciting things about my work. I try to find that in the week, sometimes study new things and try to understand, oh, can do things better. Be is something that is really important for my job. I should say that. Uh, no, there was. There is no much that I would have prefer to know because I'm happy where I am.

And, uh, I believe that it was a nice, tough, but nice, tough to reach the place where I am now. I feel similarly to how you feel. You gotta kind of just figure it out as you go. And there's no magic bullet for, you know, just figuring it out. One thing that I wanted to ask earlier, I, uh, slipped my mind was, um, so what is the degree program for that you're, uh, teaching for?

Like what, what degree are students getting when they're in these classes? Like your BIM class or your, um, egress class, or, I don't know if you are construction or VR or AR class. Yeah. And, uh, basically I teach in the undergrad program in construction of construction in, uh, at mass universities, a three years program that allow our student to construction, project manager, pen, construction quantities.

And my paper, my course is right at the end of this process, in which I show them the potential of this new technology. And, uh, or BIM or virtual reality, augmented reality 3d can be all used to make our life much easier in the construction world. But, um, we have also master program with five different, uh, major and.

Project management, quantit survey, construction, law, facility management, and building technology. And, uh, we are planning to open also new path in, uh, digital construction in which, as you can think, just listening this, uh, this, uh, major, there are different specialization for our, uh, master. And it's a really exciting master because we have a lot of, uh, student that get in a special international student that camp, they learn about, uh, new things.

And then they have the possibility to apply it in a really dynamic and exciting, uh, working place. Like. Oakland or the full New Zealand. There is so much of demand for our student that is really challenging to be unemployed with our degrees. Yeah. You really need to work hard not to be employed. Yeah. The fire protection in the United States has a really good rate of employment.

Uh, the, the students who come out of. My degree plan at Oklahoma state university, they usually come out with a couple job offers. Um, if you have, uh, decent grades and maybe an internship, it's usually pretty easy for, it seems like fire safety is and fire protection is so young and just kind of the market is starved for these kind of individuals who are, um, On the cutting edge of construction and on, you know, involved with fire protection, Zealand is definitely a nice place to look for a job.

If you really want to have a life change is a beautiful place to work and live, and there is so much demand. So it's something that I really advice to everyone that is thinky to make a move. I never thought about it. It would be interesting for me. Think about, um, what, uh, yeah, you can just send me your CB.

just kidding. No, I just was saying, I just wonder about all the differences just culturally, you know, from the us and New Zealand, you know, from the different ways that we work. I'm sure there's more than a couple, but, uh, yeah, I have no idea. I'd never been anywhere close to New Zealand, so I don't even have.

Have, uh, context for that. I, I must say that, uh, SF, we have a nice SF chapter in New Zealand, which is, uh, really helpful. We have also to be connected with, with the industry. There is also the farm protection association. Uh, we have also the Institute of our engineering, so it's a nice, uh, combination of organization and association that help to.

Create networking with the, with our small, do you participate in any professional societies? Are you, do you go to meetings or do they have student chapters? I involve quite a lot with the fire protection association, especially with the special group, uh, on, uh, if equation, Andre, which is led by my, my friend and colleague, Phil Jackson.

It is one of my main collaborator to run evacuation drills and collect data, especially in retirement homes. Hmm. So it's, uh, has been really nice guy to work with. Cause he's the one helping me to be connected with the real world and not just lock myself out of the real world in my. And I must say that also SFP has been helping me quite a lot.

It gave me a, a small research grant. Start doing more research on retirement homes. So I've been supported by quite a lot of, uh, organization and society do my research and to spread the results of my research. That's awesome. It sounds like you've been, uh, gaining a lot of traction, uh, with the grants and, you know, it sounds like this new.

This new work that you're doing with N is really exciting. Um, I saw that you have a talk coming up, um, about, oh yeah. It's tomorrow. That's so exciting. What's your, what's your speech about, I'm gonna show virtual reality, augment reality for investigation of human behavior and training. And, uh, I'm gonna show all the work done in collaboration with so many university around the world.

And better if I start preparing the slides. that's awesome. Yeah. Well, hopefully this can be your practice run for your speech. Yeah. Get your mind wrapped around maybe some questions. People will be asking you the presentation will probably online on my YouTube channel. Oh yeah. Fairly soon. Probably the end of the week.

So feel free to find me on YouTube or any other social media. Me. Yeah. What's, what's the name of your YouTube channel? Feel free to plug whatever you'd like. It's like, uh, my full name and, uh, surname Ruggiero. Loreo it's a really long spelling. I think it's, my name is gonna be in the description of this broadcast.

Just copy and paste on YouTube and you'll find. I'm the Italian guy. There you go. We'll put your, uh, YouTube channel and, uh, any other social media links in your show notes, if you like. And that's awesome. I'm glad we could, that we could plug something for you and, uh, people can find you and watch your talk.

I'm sure it'll be very interesting. Yeah, you will find a lot of nice material. On my channel. Great. That's awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast, Reno. I can't, uh, tell you it's been a pleasure talking with you. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you for inviting.

Thank you for listening. Be sure to share the episode with a friend. If you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a direction or code interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional, if you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety.

Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

In our first episode, we talk with Russ Bainbridge, PE, CFPS, who is a fire protection engineer with a bachelor’s degree in fire protection and safety technology and a master's degree in fire protection engineering. We discuss Russ’ career and dive into niche aspects of the fire protection industry like combustible dusts and hazmat response. I really enjoyed my interview with Russ, and I hope you do, too!

Show Notes 

1. How did you get into fire protection?

2. Tell me about your experience with the design side of fire protection?

3. Can you speak about your educational background?

4. What is your experience with hazardous materials, and what does hazmat design look like?

5. What is your experience with combustible dust?

6. What is the American Fire Sprinkler Association?

7. What classes are you teaching for the University of Idaho?

8. If you could start your career over again, what advice would you give yourself?

9. Tell me about in your involvement in professional committees and standards.

10. How would some one get onto a professional committee?

Transcription

[00:00:00] Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the.

You're in the right place today we have for our very first episode of fire code tech, Russ Banbridge, he's an engineer with his PE certification and his CFPs S Russ has a bachelor's degree in fire protection and safety technology and a master's degree in fire protection engineering. Today in our interview with Russ, we talk about his fascinating career and all of his different roles that he's been a part of.

He's been a authority having jurisdiction. He's been a consulting engineer. He's also currently a lecturer and somebody who owns his own consulting practice. I talk with Russ about his education and how he got involved with fire protection. We get into some really niche areas of fire protection, like combustible dust, and hazardous materials.

And Russ talks about the benefits of being in professional societies and why it's important to be a part of the creation of codes and standards through committees. I really enjoyed our interview today with Russ and I hope you do. Don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode and follow us on social media.

Let's dive in. Well, hello, Russ. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have you on. I saw that you were a okay. State alum, and I saw that you were active on social media, LinkedIn, and you are active in the field. And so I was interested in having YRN and talking to you a bit about your.

Career in fire protection. Yeah. I didn't know if you could give me a little bit of background on how you got into fire protection or just your background in general. So I actually got into the field on complete accident. Um, uh, I wasn't planning on going to college at all, but my girlfriend at the time she was planning on going and both my parents told me I wasn't allowed to not go to college.

So my wife was going to Oklahoma state, so I decided I might as well go there. And while I was there, I found out there was a degree for fire protection and I was really interested in fire. So it sounded like a perfect fit and that's. Pretty much how I fell into the field. I fell in love with it while I was there was very active and the different student associations was the president of the S F P chapter.

There was active in the fire protection society. Teaching assistant for the fire dynamics course took firefighter one that was being provided by one of the other students there that was certified to do that left the program. Right. When the recession hit, took a job in New Mexico, and that kind of started me off.

And from there, I kind of touched almost everything. It feels like in the fire protection side of hazmat response, did fire protection engineering. I never planned on actually becoming an engineer, but I fell into that. And now I also helped develop the exam. So I've really gone from not knowing anything about the field to kind of in the thick of it.

You know, I've interviewed a couple people now and it seems like I have a similar story about how I fell into fire protection, but seems like everybody has, uh, a strange path into fire protection. So I always like. Get some information on how people found it. It seems like if you didn't have a family member who, if you didn't have a family member who had experience in it, or you didn't have previous knowledge before you got into college, just seems like a lot of people just kind of fall in.

And so I always think that's interesting and talked about quite a lot there in your experience, starting out with your degree at Oklahoma state university. Um, moving on with job in the, uh, nuclear industry. Was it, uh, commercial nuclear, or was it, uh, department of energy? Nuclear? So I [00:05:00] actually did an intro ship, uh, nuclear power plant.

Sure. My experience there was, you know, as an intern. So, but that was, uh, enough on the non-governmental side for me to decide. Wasn't exactly where I wanted to go. So it was, luckily it was an internship. And then I spent some time at Los Alamos and Pantex, which both had sites that had materials, but it wasn't, you know, all over the place.

So I had to be trained and have dosimetry, but I wasn't messing with it every day. It sounds like after you, uh, had a couple. Job experiences. You got your PE you had some consulting work. Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience in, uh, the design side of things after leaving Los Alamos? I moved back to Oklahoma.

Some family was having some medical issues and so we wanted to be back with them to help with that. And so I went on kind of the design side for a while. Kind of had as much fun as I thought I wanted to have with that move back to Los Alamos, move to Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas spent some more time there.

And then I got asked to move and develop the fire protection group at a consulting firm. And that to me was extremely interesting. I got into combustible dust. With manufacturing plants, uh, doing a lot of water supply analysis, fire barrier design. We did a couple of smoke control systems. Wow. And I did a lot of hazardous material analysis with my background for a short time being a hazmat respond.

I kind of fell into that. My sister's also a chemist who's right now she's studying in Oxford. If I had questions, I had a pretty easy line to call and be like, okay, help me figure out what this chemical breakdown is and what I'm looking at. To me, that was fun. Um, right now. Well, and then I moved to a FSA, which was on the teaching side.

I really wanted to do that more. Uh, Oklahoma state has now wanted PhD candidates for professor positions. And I struggled just to get my undergrad degree so I going back to school to get a doctorate isn't in the cards right now. I said that about my master's degree from Cal poly and got that one done.

So, um, school is actually really hard for me. I have an eye disability. So reading textbooks and looking at screens, uh, gives me massive headaches if I do it for a decent amount of time. So thankfully I have ways to compensate for it. School is extremely complicated for me and testing, which is surprising since I've done so much testing, it was a hurdle I've had to overcome.

Just from looking at your credentials, as you know, PE you have a CFPs, um, you have a master's degree in fire protection for somebody who has difficulty with testing in school, it seems like you've done quite well for yourself. Then it seems like you're very well qualified and, uh, yeah, that's a lot of hard tests that you've had to go through.

Yeah. It's actually, uh, a disability that's kind of hard to diagnose, so. Happened to end up going to a, a person that specialized in this disability, uh, to get a new pair of glasses, um, didn't know anything about it. And they're like, oh yeah, you've got this disability. It's like, oh, that explains a few things.

wow. So it was kind of a surprise. I found out later that my grandfather had it and he couldn't even finish high school because of. That's really interesting. So yeah, something that I wanted to ask you since you have a similar background. Uh, to me or that I do. Can you tell me a little bit about your master's degree and how do you think that that prepared you for your career?

Or how do you think that that prepared you for your getting your PE or your CFPs, or, yeah, just tell me a little bit more about your master's degree and your master's degree courses. Oklahoma state does an amazing job at preparing. People for work in the field. I honestly think if that's all you get, that is perfect.

It is a great name out in the field. [00:10:00] Everyone knows the Oklahoma state program out in the business world. That's not to put anything against, you know, all the other programs, cuz they're all just as well known. But I could be perfectly fine where I am with my Oklahoma state degree. I just happened to want to move to a different part of the field, which, which the Cal poly degree helped with.

And it was all online, which was great because at the time I had a young daughter and so going to school wasn't exactly. Easy, but doing it online was very flexible. Even though I was working, uh, 10 hour days, for the most part, I was still able to get the program done. So, and their professors were extremely accommodating.

Especially when I explained about my eye disability. They helped me out in more ways than. I can count for, and I really appreciate that from them. The beauty of having the Oklahoma state degree as an undergrad and the Cal poly as a master's, there's a lot more hands on at Oklahoma state. So I learned a lot of, you know, we touched fire pumps.

We did flow test. We did main drain tests. We did fire pump run test. I know at one point for S F P E we burned down a structure and calculated the heat flux outta the building. So we just did a lot of hands on Cal poly is a lot of theoretical, a lot of stuff that I didn't touch while I was at Oklahoma.

When I was at Oklahoma state, none of the professors were pushing to go for your PE until about the last year they were telling you, you really should take the Fe now because it's gonna be easiest. Now. I wish I would've taken that advice. So for any potential college students, don't be like me take the Fe while you're in college.

Cuz when you're out of college and you have a kid it's extremely hard to pass that exam. It took me three tries to pass it. Wow. So it was, and when I'm not good at tests and it hurts going through it three times, by the time I was finally passed, I was like, ah, but I don't pass this time. I'm not taking this exam again.

Oh my gosh. So it was, it was a rough trip, but I got it done and I have had so many people ask me. What's the difference. And that's my main breakup is Oklahoma state is much more hands on with a little bit of theory. Cal poly is all the theory. So if you wanna really round out your experience, I highly recommend combining those two programs, but that's my experience.

I've heard other people that have gone to WPI in Maryland and they say similar things to me. I just, wasn't gonna move to new England to get my master's. Balancing out. Those is great way to flush out the field and get as much knowledge as you can. That's awesome information. I love what you said about Oklahoma state being very functional and all of the fire pump tests and doing a hydrant flow test and you know, their lab where they show you what it looks like when a sprinkler activates.

And there's a lot of great hands on activities, you know, discharging a fire extinguisher, you know what it looks like to pressure test a fire extinguisher. You're right. They do great. Yeah. I actually just had that conversation with someone about, I take a kind of controversial view on fire extinguishers.

I want everyone to exit the building upon a fire alarm, not try to fight it. Sure. And they were asking why I wouldn't want them to grab a fire extinguisher and start putting out the fire. And I'm like, well, when was the last time you actually. Used a fire extinguisher. They're not as easy as you think they are.

And you only have so much extinguishing agent. The person was kind of surprised by that response. Yeah, no, I, I, in my eyes, sir, I always think that if it's bigger than a trash can fire, then you just need to leave. Because if it's bigger than a one megawatt fire, Then you just need to get outta the building and you might not even be able to extinguish it with a fire extinguisher and yeah.

People might not know that you need to aim for the base of the fire. So yeah, you might be trying to shoot the top of the flames with the extinguisher. If you don't have training, you know, it's kind of like the same reason why they've started taking out the, uh, hose lines for the stand pipe cabinets. You.

The fire department is gonna use their own [00:15:00] hose. And there's not really very many people trained to, to use that anyways. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Another good thing you talked about that I wanted to reiterate is yeah. Taking the F E if you're a student in college taking the F E before you get out college, I did the same thing as you.

I waited until I got out into the work world and, you know, I didn't even have a young child, but just working and having to come home and spend two hours a night. Or, you know, more than that to study for months on top of working a full-time job, it's very hard, you know, it's, it's hard to have the discipline to do that.

It's even harder yet to not get discouraged. And it's, uh, super good idea to take your Fe as soon as possible, cuz otherwise you might not have the time. Or the resources to do it once you're in the field. So I thought that was great. Part of the reason why I had the motivation to do it was because of the child.

So. There's a little balance there. Right. You know, you wanna get a promotion, so you have that drive to get it done. Cool. Well, another thing that, uh, you spoke about that I've had some interest in recently is your experience with hazmat. And I've had some experience recently in my design slash consulting work with, uh, working with hazardous materials, my company.

Does work in California. And as you may know, they're a lot more serious about hazardous materials and, you know, having them classified and in the context of the building code a lot more serious than other states. So, yeah. Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience with hazmat? What kind of work you got into and yeah, what that looks like, what that design process looks.

Definitely. So my hazmat experience started because at Oklahoma state, we got our hazmat tech, the hazmat team at Los Alamos wanted some backups. So basically I, I thought I was gonna be a glorified water boy, you know, just show up and, you know, have the guy helped the hazmat, the actual hazmat responders recover the person in charge.

Had a different view. so I got suited up a couple of times. We had a couple of situations where we thought were a big deal, ended up being, not a big deal, which was great. One time we thought we had a mystery chemical and we got all suited up and it ended up being water. So that was happy. Surprise.

Another time we thought we had a pretty minor chemical and it ended up eating through a diesel tank. It was a fun time from that though. It expanded. Kind of more on the four facilities at laboratories. We worked kind of as the AJ a little bit at Los Alamos. So we had to analyze all the chemicals they had in the facility to make sure they weren't exceeding their limits.

Uh, we had a couple of laboratories that pushed that limit quite a bit. I had a buddy that was working on making jet fuel out of sugars from potatoes. Wow. And I would give him a hard time all the time about his chemicals, but he definitely respected me a little bit more cuz he was dealing with flammable material so he didn't wanna die either.

And then when I went to the consulting side, a lot of food manufacturers. Really don't realize how hazardous their chemicals can be because they have 'em in bulk. You know, if you just have it at home, it's, you know, no big deal. But when you're ordering 500, a thousand gallons, all of a sudden that material can get pretty bad.

And so I was having to train a lot of these building owners and facility owners, what they actually had on. One of our customers. I actually took to Foskey in Illinois and showed them that their dust was explosive. And that kind of helped us get through that was doing a lot in combustible dust, be amazed what goes into different products and how small it's all getting.

But it, it was very eye-opening to me. I joked with several customers that I thought the most dangerous material I worked with was at Los Alamos. And Pantex until I got into food manufacturing with combustible dust. Next thing I wanted to ask you about was your combustible desk experience because that's another one that is not as common, [00:20:00] but.

It is very hazardous and hard to deal with and people who don't deal with it every day have, uh, I feel like it's a rough time to even wrap your arms around all the codes and standards for combustible dust. NFPA has done a considerable job trying to clean that up. When I first got into it, you know, it would say, look at this one.

And then, but if you have this go look at this one. And then that one that you just referenced says to go back to the previous one and it, it kind of bounced around. They have cleaned that up considerably. Uh, the, the biggest hurdle I ran into was getting these building owners and manufacturers to believe that their material was combustible.

Most of them, if they were dealing with powdered milk and sugar, they knew about those. but they didn't realize, like I did a corn or a cattle feed plant. They didn't realize a lot of their grains when they brought 'em in, they were fine. But as soon as they crushed them down, it was highly explosive, which they had vents on the roof.

And when you went up to the roof, those events had activated quite frequently. Uh, but they didn't realize they had it in the rest of the facility. They only thought they had the issue in their equip. And trying to explain to them what they really needed to be doing was that was a struggle. Uh, it wasn't just anyone, uh, manufacturing process either.

We found it all over the place and they had no idea. They had the issue. I also worked with equipment manufacturers trying to get some of those designers to realize. Look, we can't put that piece of equipment in this room because of the combustible dust issue. Mm-hmm that was a struggle as well. Cause they would be putting these pieces of equip.

Dead smack in the middle of the plant. It's like, no, you need to have it on exterior wall so I can vent out of it. That's a big problem for those dust collectors is where you gonna put 'em, it's not gonna be a hazard to, uh, whatever's around them. You know, you can't have people walking around near a dust collector.

If it's gonna, you know, if your declaration vent near it is gonna be throwing shrapnel 50 feet, you know, That's an interesting point about, you know, locating those Def ration vis and those collectors, right? You really have to fight for your location early in the project, which sadly enough, most of the time we as fire protection engineers get involved late in the game.

And so a lot of the real estate's already accounted for trying to tell. An architect, Hey, I hate to break it to you, but you're gonna have to rearrange this whole corner of the facility because you got this issue. It's almost a non-starter and you have to figure out other ways to fix it, which is just a huge headache.

One of my go-tos to get these guys to realize like, Hey, I gotta ventilate this properly. My minor is in emergency management. Some of the classes I took, we specifically covered. When your organs start to rupture at different pressure waves and how the pressure waves work. So I could go in and be like, well, at this point, your eardrums have ruptured at this point.

Your lungs have ruptured this point, your spleen and heart have gone. So we probably want to ventilate this properly instead of just dumping it into the room. And normally everyone's eyes get real big. People start agreeing to what you're saying. yeah, maybe that's a good, uh, that's a good little tip there.

Maybe if you can just, you know, highlight the reason for these changes, you know, bring it back to a physical world application or why we need these things instead of just saying, Hey, we need this corner of the room. It's code. You know, a lot of times that's not enough. It should be enough, but a lot of times that's not enough in, uh, when you're coordinating with other people.

I can see how that would be a struggle. Yeah. And I try to use those type of things as last ditch, cuz you don't wanna be the guy that walks in the room and tells everyone they're gonna die. But , you know, when you've been inviting for three months and you've used all your honey up, you know, trying to sweet talk everyone into doing what you need.

Sometimes you just gotta drop the hammer. Definitely I've had more interest recently in combustible dust and just hazardous chemicals and classification of those chemicals. So that's really interesting that you've had experience with that. So now, uh, moving into more of what you're getting into now, how did you make [00:25:00] the transition to become, uh, a teacher or how did you break into academia?

So my dad, uh, is a geologist in Oklahoma. Surprise, surprise. He is a very, very smart man. He's written a few books and was an adjunct professor for Oklahoma state in OKC. So saying I am the dance of the family is putting it lightly. Like I said, my sister's at Oxford. My grandfather helped invent the electric garage door opener.

Oh. My mom went to Northwestern university. Hence the reason why I had to go to college. Uh, and as I said, my sisters at Oxford and I swear she was there purely to make me look like a dunk , you know, she's always had the good grade point average. I was always the guy that's like, where's the hammer I can swing.

That's kind of how I fell into it is teaching has kind of been around me. My in-laws are teachers. My wife helps teach children programs at churches. So I was kind of the only one that wasn't in that field at the time. And so it was kind of an easy transition. I could never teach children. I have found out by volunteering to help my wife with a few things.

Don't have the ability to do that. adults though. I can do decently well, I'm actually. Very introverted surprise, surprise an engineer that is introverted. I have always liked passing knowledge on as much as I can. You know, there's certain things I can teach. There are other things where it's fake it till you make it.

I have done fairly well. I've been formed by faking it until I make it. That's all a confidence thing. I think I really enjoy teaching to be honest. So if anyone ever has any questions, feel free to email me bison fire pro gmail.com. Part of my, one of my side jobs, because I struggle to sit still I have three jobs currently and that's just in fire protection.

I also do some stuff on the side for endurance sports. So I, I just don't sit still, but one of my side gigs is for HRS systems, which is the maker of Haas. And I answer a lot of their tech questions and I'm helping them develop their programs out there. I just couldn't get away from it. After I left the American fire sprinkler association, which that was my main job was teaching and answering technical questions.

It's just something I've always liked. I think it drives my wife nuts. She knows more about fire protection than she will ever want to know. That's incredible that you are so multifaceted and you know, can keep so many plates spinning. I feel like most people are struggling just to keep down one job. And it seems like you have no end to, uh, pursuits are filled with interesting work.

Uh, It's not always as smooth as it sounds. I just got over a sinus infection, which the doctor told me was purely because I wasn't getting enough sleep. , you know, there's that side, which I kind of was like, well, that's not gonna change anytime soon. So some things do get slipped to the cracks. Thankfully, we have a great team at my full-time job and at HR systems where.

Are able to realize like Russ kind of needs some bumpers every once in a while, or they keep him in his line. So they, they keep me on track. They make sure I'm getting my tasks done. And I try to remind all of them. Like I do not take any offense. If you tell me, Hey, where is this? Hey, are you working on that?

Because there are times where I literally forget to eat lunch. That's so funny. So you talked a little bit about your. Experience with AF F S a what is the American fire sprinkler association. And tell me a little bit about your, uh, answering technical questions for them. So that's a very good question.

What is AFS a? I asked the same thing when I applied for the position, cause I had not heard about it. One of my main goals while I was there is to try to get them more represented specifically at Oklahoma state. So while I was there, we were working with several of the professors to try to collaborate specifically with their sprinkler lab.

So if we could get them products in to look at and let the students look at and also come into make some [00:30:00] instructional videos and things like that, it is in a great association. If you are in the sprinkler field. So my job was to teach their basically introduction to fire sprinkler design. So it was a condensed, extremely condensed intensive class.

So it was two weeks long, eight hours a day. And we basically crammed two semesters. Of OSU into two weeks. And so I would tell several of my students who were just like, I am not getting this. I would remind them like you are getting so much information. All I want you to do right now is take notes. You can ask me questions, you know, a month or two afterwards, if it doesn't make sense.

But so we were, we were trying to. Either recent college graduates that didn't graduate with a fire protection degree or guys that had been, had spent some time out in the field. We were trying to make them designers within two weeks, which is basically impossible. Right? So we, we got them as much base knowledge as we could.

And then the beauty was the second part of my job was answering technical questions. So when they got out in the field and they're reading something at N FPA 13, it just doesn't make sense. They could gimme a call or write me an email and say, what does this mean? Because you know, standards and codes are completely written in English, right?

Yeah. So on the flip side of that, a lot of the staff at a F S a and a lot of. They also have members that are on committees as well. So we know a lot of the backside of what went into the different standards and codes. And so we would break it down for you to English. So you could understand it or help you apply it specifically to your situation.

And I would write something called a code or standard interpretation. My. Specialty at AFSA was the code. Since I spent time working for fire marshals, we spent a lot of time in the fire code. And so I could also show why you had to do something out of NFPA 13 per the building code. Versus why doesn't N FPA 13 point back to the building code.

So I did a lot of that cross analysis and a lot of deep dives that no one wants to do. into the standards and codes. It was mind numbing, but it is thoroughly expanded my knowledge on almost anything that's water based. So we would also teach fire pumps. Obviously we would do stamp pipes, water mist, if it touched water.

Basically, we would help you out with it. Great information. You know, I'm sure that I've had so much experience with NFPA 13. I was. Fire suppression designer for a while. And you know, now as somebody who is on the engineering side of things and does a lot of water supply analysis and you know, that sort of thing for facilities, I've had a lot of experience with N F P eight 13, and I still get into situations where it's really hard to understand what's going on.

I can imagine trying to teach people. And like you were saying drinking from the fire hose, that is decodes are so difficult to start picking up in the beginning of your career. That's probably your first huge hurdle. Is being able to just even read, you know, much less understand the code. So that's really interesting to hear you talk about taking young professionals and trying to get them code literate as fast as you can, and, uh, make them designers.

When we would go over hydraulic calculations, I would bring in donuts that morning, cuz it was just like, I need you to like have a quick sugar hit when you start to the eyes, start to roll on the back of the heads. But the, the other beauty of working at AF F S a is I worked under rolling and his knowledge of N FPA 13 is just extensive.

He would tell me, you know, one time at this one committee for NFPA 13. This happened. And then someone got cranky about that. And then we all were tired and basically this is how it went through and he would know exactly like what people said, you know, what the time of day was what he had for lunch. You know, it was just one of those.

Like he just remembered all of it. And so that expanded some of my knowledge, just purely knowing. [00:35:00] Why everyone agreed to put this in the standard. You know, if you talk to anyone that's on committees and stuff, they will tell you certain things, you know, we're not entirely flushed out when they put it in the standard.

And that was purely because we knew something was going on, but we weren't quite sure at the time what was causing. Now most of it's pretty well flushed out and backed up by science, but not all of it has been backed up by science, but now we have really foremost, not all the standards we have flushed that out pretty well.

It's so interesting for me, because as a fire protection professional, I just see. Fire protection is just so very young compared to other disciplines of engineering. We're still in the wild, wild west in the wild, in a lot of ways, you know, as far as establishing ourselves and, you know, getting everything straightened out.

And I think in, you know, 10 years it'll be a different story. Yeah. Right. There's a lot of areas that are just not as developed. So that's a great point. Yeah. And I thought when I first got involved in the committee process, you know, like it was gonna be really formal and everyone was gonna, you know, there was gonna be, you know, first motion, the second motion, there are those things, but there's also name calling every once in a while.

And people yelling at each other and it gets flushed out and their tempers will get flared up on certain things. Like I am. You know, very passionate about certain things in the field. And that's purely cuz I've seen friends get hurt. I've seen things done wrong. I've seen buildings burn down, you know?

And so there are certain things, you know, that are obviously my pet peeve and I hammer those out and everyone's looking at me like, why is he getting riled up? Everyone has those things. There's other committee meetings where I sit there and I don't care about whatever they're talking about. So I zone out, but then we get back into whatever topic I am in like that I'm really interested in and I flare back up to life.

So it it's a, everyone is on the different committees for different reasons. And so everyone's gonna have a different passion. can you tell me about some of the classes that you're teaching now? What kind of classes are you teaching for the university of Idaho? So one of my other jobs is a lecturer for university of Idaho, and they have a graduate certificate program in fire protection.

And I did not actually develop any of the course material. Basically go through and grade and help the students flush out the material that is in those courses. So they have pre-recorded videos. They're pretty well done. All things considered. There are a few things that I would love to change in them because the individual that recorded them put in a few things that are specific to his region of the country, and that's not bad or wrong.

It's. It doesn't apply to everyone. So I would like to kind of flush that out a little bit more. Uh, so students email me ask questions, you know, and I obviously grade their papers. And so I help kind of flush that knowledge out that way. It's a great program. If you're looking just to put another feather in your cap, It's also great for those of those individuals that are in the field and they don't actually have a fire protection degree.

It's a great thing to go put on your resume. So if you're interested, you'll reach out to the university, you know, feel free to send any questions, my way that you have about it. We're actually trying to expand the program. So if you are interested, please let me know. I will definitely get you an application and walk you through how to get into the program.

I'm glad to hear about, you know, any programs in fire protection. I think that fire protection needs more people out there like yourself or us who are vocal about their passion and about how good the field is to people. And so I enjoy hearing about other programs and.

Can you tell me about why you decided to get your CFPs or your certification as a fire protection specialist? Yeah, I think it, I think it's a valuable certification, but I'd just like to hear about why you wanted to get that, uh, certification for yourself.

So just kind of like everything I have done in this field, I kind of fell into it. I was working with a guy who he was gonna go get it. And he wanted someone to study with during lunch breaks and stuff. Uh, he was also a student at Cal poly at the time. So [00:40:00] we had been working late nights trying to get our work together, um, and submitted and he was gonna go take the exam.

And so he was like, Hey, you wanna take the exam? You seem to like test. And I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm good on tests. I've I'm done. Somehow. He convinced me to do it. I still, to this day, I'm struggling on how he did that. Um, so we studied together and then for about two months, every lunch break we made, you know, our own study guide, highlighted books.

And then we took a class that was offered. Over how to study for it, which the first 10 minutes of class, the guy instructing, it said, how many engineers do we have in here? And me and my buddy raised our hands and he goes, yeah, you two are gonna fail. And we were both like what? He goes, well, you guys know all this stuff off the top of your head, the CFPs isn't purely that you need to be able to look it.

You know, both of us were all of a sudden, you know, like, well, we're gonna pass this dad gun thing, just to show this guy. We know what we're talking about. Thankfully, we both passed, uh, or else it would've been really awkward cuz we traveled from Texas to Tennessee to take the exam. So you know that would've been a, a weird car ride back if one of us had passed and the other one hadn't we actually kind of like stared at each other and were like, how'd it go?

You know, waiting for the other one to say like, I didn't pass or I passed. And finally, I think I was like, well, uh, I pass. He's like, great. I passed too. It is definitely worthwhile if you're looking into it. I would not. I would say if you have your PE it's not a necessity, but it's definitely something that helps round out your resume.

I am actually on their advisory board, so I can't. Too much into the specifics of it, because I know all the questions that are on the exam and how it's balanced and how it's graded, um, which I will be rotating off of that soon, but it, it is definitely worthwhile looking at, um, fire protection field. If you have a degree in it, it's not as necessary as if you are someone that is coming with like a mechanical degree.

I know there are people that have like MBAs and accounting degrees that take it. They tend to be on the, uh, insurance side. So they're trying to show that they, they know what they're talking about. So it it's a, it's a wider range of testers, you know, firefighters, the whole GA. It's pretty thorough test. I remember looking at some of the questions and being like, I have no earthly idea.

I guess it's gonna be C well, uh, it sounds like you've had a lot of great experience in, uh, fire protection. So if you were starting over again from square one back right outta college, what would you, what piece of advice would you give yourself? Let's say you're a college freshman you're, you've already decided you wanna do fire protection and you pull what I do and fall into it, which I like to say I took a victory lap because my first year, most of my credits didn't transfer.

So I decided to stay an extra year to college, which, um, if you're on student loans, I wouldn't recommend that but the big thing I would recommend that I took full advantage of was internship. Internships will get you a lot of experience. Some of it is unbelievably boring. I remember filing papers in one of my internships.

I absolutely hated it, but there was other parts that were just amazing experience. Uh, I worked for a fire marshal out in California. I got to spend a week doing wild land firefighting. I wouldn't have gotten that experience anywhere else. I actually did hand cut lines. It was out at an army base and they were shooting off, trace around.

So they wanted to burn off all the grass before it, you know, became a problem. That was a great experience. Uh, like I said, at the power plant found out I didn't wanna work there. You know, it's much, it's much easier to find that out in a three month internship than it is taking a job and relocating and being like, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into?

So I would highly recommend. Internships and then be as active as you can. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I was very active in the program and I ended up making a lot of friends in, like I said, I'm introverted. So making those friends was great. It helped me get some jobs. Help me make a lot of connections.

And then the last thing I would say is [00:45:00] if you can take the FY, I'm not gonna tell everyone you have to. It's a lot easier to take it now. Cause it's all computer based before it was, they only gave it every six months. So you only had a certain time to take it, but if you can take it while a lot of that knowledge is fresh, I would, I just cannot recommend that enough because.

90%, at least for me of the Fe, I have never used outside of the Fe the PE 90% of it, I do all the time. So it was, I barely even had to study for that, but the Fe it's just. It's a general exam for the most part. So it's, it's hard to pass that if you are an Oklahoma state grad, I would recommend taking the industrial for the afternoon portion because there's safety questions that you will just know off the top of your head.

That is actually how I ended up passing the Fe. I took it two times as general in the morning, general in the afternoon. And then someone recommended to me to try industrial and I tried it and that was when I passed. And I honestly don't know what my score was or anything. I didn't care. All I cared about was I passed.

So I don't know what really got me over the finish line. Those are the things I would recommend to new people that are in college. And then if you're straight out of, out of college, I would recommend. Just trying to soak up as much knowledge as you can. My first month at Los Alamos was reading standards and codes was so painful as also when I taught myself ha uh, just as something else to do other than staring at the standards.

um, so if you have the time, you know, just try to learn as much as you can. I know that sounds very much like. Teacher answer. I can't recommend enough. I've run across so many people that in the field that I'm like, how do you not know this? Like that's day one stuff. So just try to learn it and be patient with people that don't.

I mean, if you're an Oklahoma state grad, Maryland, grad WPI, grad, you have a wealth of knowledge that other people don't have. So just, you know, try to keep an open. That's great tips for people, um, young professionals, really all professionals. Um, so that's great. Yeah. I wanted to get into, you've talked several times about, um, committees you're on or groups you're involved with.

Will you speak to some of the professional societies or boards that you're on or a part of and how that helps you as a fire protection? Profess?

so a lot of it again is cuz I can't sit still. And I also, as a younger engineer, I'm not exactly old or anything, but I saw a lot of problems and I being the genius that I am decided I should try to fix these things, uh, you know, and being on these committees now I understand. No, there's a reason. 99.9% of the things that are in there, but it has helped expand my knowledge.

I have gotten to have my say on a few things. So right now I am most active with S F P E I am on their exam development committee. I did their risk based their guide that is out there for risk based approach analysis. And I've been on a few other committees. I've been on the nominating C. To me, it's just a great organization.

It really helps develop the field and promote the field. Um, and then I obviously worked at a FSA, so I'm very biased towards them, even though I don't work there, I try to help out as much as I can. I'm actually helping write an article for sprinkler age right now, which I believe was due a day or two ago.

Which I was writing in my son's gymnastics class. So I am, like I said, I get too many irons in the fire. Thankfully, my wife is a marketing slash grammar person, which I am not. So I can, I have an in-house editor so I can get that pretty cleaned up pretty quickly. Hence the reason why she knows more about fire protection than she would ever like to know, uh, N FPA, I was on a couple of committees as my, as part of my position at AF F S a I'm when you leave a job, you get booted off of those.

Um, so like I used to be on the laser committee because I worked with a lot of lasers at Los Alamo. And as soon as I left there, I got booted off. That was a fun committee to be on, by the way, [00:50:00] if you're ever combustible dust and laser lasers are the two fields, I can't recommend enough to go spend some time with, they're just amazing fields.

I've tried to get on the international Coco. So the ICC who develops the building code and the fire code, and I have not been able to figure out whatever. Special code to get into that is, you know, whether it's up, up, down, down a, B, B, or you know, what, whatever it is, I have not been able to break that yet.

I'm hoping someday to be able to get on there. Um, cuz in the end that's really what drives the standards is, you know, if the building code doesn't reference it or require it, you're not technically required to do it by law. But I cannot recommend enough being involved at S F P E N FPA. If you have something you're passionate about, go get on that committee.

They are actively looking for people. And so I would recommend doing that. I've also been on IFTA, which is based out of Stillwater at Oklahoma state. I've been on a few of their committees, which their first committee committee I was on was, uh, their sprinkler. Book. And I was on there with pat Brock, which was the instructor at Oklahoma state for, I don't know how long.

So when I got to the first committee meeting, I was just like, why am I here? You have the godfather of fire protection sprinklers. Like what, what a, I can't add anything to this. So it was, it was an interesting experience. To also get to know a professor, you know, as a human versus the guy that is killing me on all my papers.

So I, I would recommend that that's so neat that you got to be on a panel with pat Brock. He is definitely a legend. Yeah. I'm sure that people are like, oh yeah. Well, you guys are both Oklahoma state guys. So you would say that, but no, his book on hydraulic. I've read more than a couple about fire protection hydraulics and his book is just phenomenal.

I can't recommend that enough for people who are trying to learn sprinkler calculations or just, uh, water supply analysis in general. But his book is written well enough that I could learn on the side by myself, fire, sprinkler hydraulics. So if you are wanting to get into the field, I cannot recommend that book enough.

Mine literally is falling apart at the seams. Cause I still reference it at least weekly now just to make sure I'm, you know, not off basis on some of my calcs or theories that I'm telling people. So it it's a, it's a great book to have on the shelf. I wanted to ask, you've spoken a little bit. About committees now.

And so if somebody wanted to get on one of these committees, what's the process for that look like? So you go on to an F B's website, fill out a profile, and the different committees are looking for different individuals in different fields. So in my experience, it was a lot easier to get on if you worked for an aha than it is, if you.

On the consulting or design side. That's not to say it's impossible. It's just, there's a lot more people fighting for those seats on the consulting and design side. Whereas AHJs, there's just some that don't wanna be as involved. Um, it's not to say that's right wrong or. Anything else it's just, they don't want to consultants and engineers designers.

We all tend to want to be on those committees so that we can drive. How we think it should go. So, and that it's different for every committee. There are certain committees where there are more HJS than I personally would, like, just because they make my life hard sometimes. So you fill out the profile, you tell 'em who you're working for.

If you can get your employer to sponsor your activity, it also helps because they want to know that you can make it to the meeting, to the meetings in person meetings. There aren't too many of 'em. They wanna know that you're actually gonna be there and if your employer's supporting it and, or funding it, that's more of a guarantee for them that you're gonna be there.

Different committees definitely are needing people. I get calls every once in a while. Like, Hey. We need someone, would you be willing to just be on this committee now you still have to apply and everything. And I've had that call where they're like, would you be willing to be on this committee? And then I apply.

And they're like, actually thanks, but no, thanks. So it's not a guarantee that you'll get on it, but there have been times also where I was put on committees at a FSA that I didn't want to be on, but we [00:55:00] needed someone on it. So it. It's not that I wasn't qualified. It was just, I thought it was boring, so I didn't wanna be on it.

Um, but I mean, NFPA 13, I don't think most people realize, like there are a lot of committees just for that, that one standard. It's not just one N FPA 13 committee. I can't remember how many there are. I was on the hanging embracing because I had done a lot of work in California, which that actually can, that got heated a few times.

You know, if you're in the middle of the country and don't have earthquakes, why do you care about seismic bracing? And then if you're in California, you're definitely passionate about seismic bracing. It's kind of hard to crack into. Once you kind of get into it, it gets a little bit easier. It takes some practice riding up your biography, right.

To get on there to me. I guess the advice I would have is if you don't get on one, Don. Let that get you down. If I go onto NFPA right now, I think I have 30 active applications. And I know I have at least three times that amount of denied applications. You know, it's one of those as I've been told around here, because I found out we have alligators is every once in a while, a blind alligator find something to eat sometimes rapid fire.

You know, if I've got a free moment, I might just go in and apply for four or five committees. I've gone years where I haven't been on any, which sometimes that was kind of nice cuz it freed up my time. Other times it was like, well, what the heck? What am I doing that didn't get me on a committee. I would just recommend if you really want to go down that path, which I recommend everyone should be active in this field is possible.

I would recommend just constantly trying to. I definitely feel like I need to start applying now. You're making me feel like I'm falling behind. I needed some applications out there. I mean, that was part of my job for a while, was to be on NFBA committee. So that helps. Well, Russ, I, uh, wanna be mindful of your time.

Thank you so much for coming on. And speaking with me, I've really enjoyed talking with you. I think we covered a lot of great stuff. That was great. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

This is the introduction show for the Fire Code Tech Podcast. In this episode, you’ll hear from the show host Gus Gagliardi about why he created the podcast and what you can expect from future episodes. Hope you enjoy the show! 

Don't forget to follow Fire Code Tech on social media, and subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Transcription

Hello. All welcome to episode zero and our introduction to the show. My name is Gus Gagliardi, and I just wanna thank you for listening. I'm a fire protection designer and I have a bachelor's in science and fire protection and safety technology. During my college career, I really enjoyed all my fire protection classes, but some of my favorites were hydraulics, sprinklers, industrial hygiene, and special suppression and detection systems.

I started my career as a fire protection designer for a fire suppression contracting company. And most of my time was spent hydraulically, calculating designing, and stock listing water based fire protection, suppression systems. After some time designing only water based fire protection systems. I had a lot of curiosity about what other facets of.

Fire protection industry that I could learn about this led me to my current role as a fire protection designer for an architecture and engineering firm. I've had the privilege of being involved with a wide variety of fire protection systems and projects. Of course, I've had plenty of experience with fire suppression and fire alarm design.

But some of the more unique areas of fire protection I've been involved with are hangar, fire protection, combustible, dust, hazards, materials, and special hazards, suppression, and alternative detection means it makes the job interesting to design buildings that follow all sorts of codes and standards.

There are different sets of requirements for commercial, residential, and department of defense buildings. I've been involved with projects that have special insurance considerations like FM global standards. These buildings can be found coast to coast across the us. I recently have passed my exam for professional engineering, specializing in fire protection.

And I'm only a couple months away from obtaining my license. I've had a lot of experience recently with studying for the PE exam for fire protection and being a young professional in the fire protection industry. What I've learned is that trying to learn. All about fire protection through solely reading codes and standards and scholarly articles is that it's a very difficult process.

If you don't have the experience or the personal connections to contextualize the information compared to other industries like tech or even. Engineering disciplines like civil and mechanical fire protection, lacks resources for professionals. This podcast is my attempt to highlight the careers and experiences of successful professionals in the industry and, and create a resource for those who hunger.

For more knowledge about the industry. My goal is to produce content for those interested in fire protection and record some of the interesting experiences for fire protection professionals. The podcast is structured around individuals and the show is episodic and can be listened to in any order goal is to release two episodes of the podcast a month with the interview run time at about 50 minutes to an hour, the podcast will be released every second and fourth Monday of.

You can listen to the [email protected] or you can listen to the podcast on Spotify or iTunes, be sure to subscribe. So you never miss an episode. I've had a lot of fun interviewing the guests so far and I've learned a lot. So I hope you enjoy the episodes. Thank you for tuning in and make sure to jump ahead to episode one of fire code tech with Russell Bainbridge, who is a professional engineer, a certified fire protection specialist, a consultant, a professor, and somebody who is involved with committees and the development of cogen standards.