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Smart Firefighting
By Smart FirefightingEducation
Smart Firefighting episodes
- Don't Surrender Your Judgment to the Box with Jeff Shelton | Episode 336
A fire is moving and the model on the screen says one thing. Jeff Shelton has spent 35 years on the front line, and his rule is simple: don't surrender your judgment to the box.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Jeff is a qualified Long Term Fire Behavior Analyst on a Type 1 Federal Interagency Incident Management Team, a Fire Captain-Analyst with the Orange County Fire Authority, and an instructor of S-495 and S-590 at the National Advanced Fire and Resource Institute.
He breaks fire behavior down to two numbers, speed and intensity, and explains why a model is the start of a conversation, not the end of one. He shares what he heard at the Western Fire Chiefs Phase 3 technology summit, why speed to competency worries him, and what the next five years could look like on the fire line.
Topics covered
- Wildland firefighting as a game of 3D chess- Speed and intensity: rate of spread drives strategy, flame length drives tactics- Why models represent reality but are not reality- "2036 is right now": the Western Fire Chiefs Phase 3 summit- Decision support, not decision making- Speed to competency, entrapments, and shrinking margins- Stress inoculation and digital sand tables for crews- What an IC needs in initial attack versus extended attack- Evacuations, Watch Duty, and why data standards matter- The coming tech roadmap and Chief Fennessy's leadershipSo take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
1 hr 5 min - Episode 335: The Proactive Crisis Manager: How Berlin Fire Plans With Data | Frank Pohland at Interschutz 2026
Many strategic plans end up on a shelf. Berlin's did not. Frank Pohland leads strategic planning for the Berlin Fire Department, and his team is putting Strategy 2030 into action.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
This conversation was recorded on the floor of Interschutz 2026 in Hannover.
Berlin is an old, dense city with little room for new fire stations. The city grows and its population gets older. The department cannot grow at the same speed. So Berlin chose a new role: a proactive crisis manager for the city.
Frank explains how years of mission data now drive planning, EMS deployment, and the budget case for the future.
Topics covered:
- Strategy 2030 and the shift from reactive to proactive
- Limited resources in an old, densely built city
- Moving from past mission data to predictive planning software
- More vegetation fires in a green city
- Resilience research: training hubs that prepare citizens for a power outage
- Drones for scene reconnaissance and the autonomous future
- Replacing a single 10-minute EMS goal with urgency-based response
- A forecast of more than 600,000 missions a year
- Exoskeletons, robotics, smart helmets, and intelligent nozzles
- An open door for startups that want to work with Berlin
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
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15 min - Episode 334: FLIR Sells Time: Thermal Imaging, Speed, and the Next Five Years with Peter Dekkers of FLIR
A firefighter sweeps a smoke-filled room. Every second of that sweep matters. Peter Dekkers of FLIR Systems explains how thermal imaging wins those seconds back.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
This conversation was recorded on the floor of Interschutz 2026 in Hannover.
The human eye cannot see through smoke. It cannot see in total darkness. It cannot read the temperature. A thermal camera does all three. Peter walks through FLIR's newest fire cameras, why training matters as much as the hardware, and where AI will take the thermal imager next.
Topics covered:
- Why FLIR frames its cameras as time and speed, not spec sheets
- The human limits a thermal camera overcomes: smoke, darkness, temperature
- Removing the delay when a camera shifts between hot and cold zones
- The K-series and the NFPA-compliant K85N
- The upcoming K95 and its 95-degree field of view
- Why FLIR does not experiment with firefighting products
- The camera is only as good as the user: weekly training
- VR training and the systematic room scan
- Connected cameras and AI-guided decisions in the next five years
- Peter's rule for work and life: you create your own conditions
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
17 min - Episode 333: A Digital Sand Table for Wildland Fire with Jackson Yip of Paladin Industries
Wildland crews dig line for days. Then the fire jumps it, and they fall back to the next ridge. Nobody knew if that line would hold. Jackson Yip wants crews to know before they dig.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Jackson is a meteorologist and the founder of Paladin Industries. He came up through the fire weather lab at San Jose State. He was in Paradise during the Camp Fire and worked on the investigation of the Carr Fire line of duty death.
Paladin is his answer: a digital sand table for wildland fire. Enter a set of coordinates and see where the fire will go for the next six hours. Then add hand line, dozer line, or a retardant drop and see what holds.
Topics covered:
- Leaving pure research to build tools for the fireline
- Lessons from the Camp Fire and the Carr Fire fire tornado
- Why fire behavior models feel shoehorned into operations
- The Rothermel nomogram and the tradition of putting science in the field
- Why 95 to 97 percent of initial attacks succeed, and the 3 to 5 percent that do not
- The first-arriving officer's key question: can we catch this?
- What a digital sand table is and how it moves from training to operations
- Live demo: a six-hour fire spread simulation with tactics on the map
- Why Paladin uses physics, not AI, and works offline
- Leader's intent, span of control, and export to ICS forms
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
49 min - Episode 332: Make Mistakes Safely: Egi Cuijten on VR Training for High-Risk, Low-Frequency Incidents
Some incidents happen once in a career. A massive fire with multiple trucks, EMS, and police on scene. When it happens, crews need to be ready. Egi Cuijten of Flashgroup builds virtual reality training for exactly that gap.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Recorded at Interschutz 2026 in Hannover, this conversation starts with a simple point. In virtual reality training, the most important word is training.
Egi explains how VR lets a young firefighter make mistakes safely, see how smoke and oxygen behave, and learn from a trainer's decades of experience. It does not replace live fire. It fills the space between the classroom and the burn building.
Topics covered:
- Why training matters more than the virtual part
- The space between classroom theory and live fire
- High-risk, low-frequency incidents and multi-agency response
- From PC and tablet simulation to mobile VR headsets
- Passing a veteran trainer's knowledge to young firefighters
- Fire dynamics in VR: smoke, temperature, and oxygen
- Why a trainee sees nothing until they kneel below the smoke layer
- Nozzle, extinguisher, and firearm controllers for multi-discipline training
- AI characters, virtual commanders, and the next five years
- Plug and train: how Flashgroup started during COVID and reached more than 20 countries
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
21 min - Episode 331: Where Have We Searched? SARCOP, the Common Operating Platform Behind FEMA USAR Teams with Jared Doke
After a hurricane, a tornado or a wildfire, search and rescue teams need three answers fast. Where do we need to search? Where have we already searched? Where do we go next? SARCOP, the Search and Rescue Common Operating Platform, exists to answer those questions on a map.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Jared Doke is a director at the NAPSG Foundation, the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS. His team built SARCOP on ArcGIS Online and supports all 28 federal FEMA urban search and rescue teams plus teams in 37 states.
Recorded at Interschutz, this conversation covers how the platform works, what it looked like on the Eaton fire, how a local agency gets onboarded, and where NAPSG is headed with training and a 24-7 operations branch.
Topics covered:
- What SARCOP is and the three questions it answers
- Built on ArcGIS Online, configured for urban search and rescue
- Live layers: weather, flooding, post-event imagery and FEMA analysis
- Track logs, waypoints, damage observations and hazards
- The open training sandbox versus the locked deployment side
- How a local technical rescue or water rescue team gets onboarded
- All hazards pre-staging: tornado, flood, earthquake and wildfire
- Surfside to Hurricane Helene and Milton, over 100 teams at once
- The Eaton fire: pre-staging a week early and secondary searches
- Ten in-person trainings this year and a 24-7 operations branch
- SARCOP the product and SARCOP the service
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
10 min - Episode 330: Building for the City of the Future: CAD Data, Digital Twins and Station Placement with Craig Hiltz – Darkhorse
Every fire department already owns years of CAD and RMS data. Most of it sits untouched…
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Craig Hiltz of Darkhorse turns that data into a digital twin of the response system, so a chief can test a station, a roving engine or a staffing change on screen before spending a dollar on it.
Recorded at Interschutz, this conversation walks through what a digital twin is in plain language, why a dashboard only tells you what happened yesterday, and what departments in Meridian, Odessa and Toronto found when they asked the what-if questions. Craig also shares his own path from statistician and market researcher to the fire service.
Topics covered:
- Why CAD and RMS data goes unused and what it can answer
- Dashboards versus the why and the what if
- Digital twins explained in plain language
- Meridian, Boise and Eagle in one regional model
- A roving engine instead of a new station
- Accreditation data packages: SOC, CRA and the three axes risk model
- Odessa: two minutes off dispatch equals ten new stations
- Toronto: a ten percent budget cut and NFPA 1710 compliance
- ALS to BLS, fleet decisions and firefighter call stress
- Craig's path from statistics and market research to Dark Horse
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
20 min - Episode 329: Precision Over Volume: Rethinking the Fire Nozzle with Jason Floyd of HEN Technologies
For decades the fire service has answered bigger fires with one move: more water. Bigger lines, bigger turrets, bigger flows. Modern fires have outgrown that equation.
In wind driven wildfires, traditional fog streams erode before they reach the flame front. Crews end up battling the nozzle instead of the fire.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Jason Floyd spent 25 years in the fire service. Now he works with HEN Technologies, the company behind the adjustable smoothbore nozzle.
The design started when the founder's wife evacuated her family alone from a California wildfire and challenged him to solve the problem. He was an industry outsider, so he broke the fire stream down to its science.
The result merges the best of smoothbore and fog: large wind resistant droplets with an adjustable pattern. The company is now growing from nozzles into a connected system of telemetry, hydraulics, and AI informed command.
Topics covered:
- The origin story: a wildfire evacuation and an industry outsider
- Superior fluidics in plain language
- Merging 60 years of smoothbore and fog into one nozzle
- Pre-distributed water: laser beam versus paintbrush
- Large space fires and master stream limitations
- Rethinking brush fire turrets for mega fires
- The Maui study and wind resistant streams
- UL research: put water in the right place
- Nozzle reaction, fatigue, and one firefighter hand lines
- From HEN Nozzles to HEN Technologies: telemetry, AI, and command
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
30 min - Episode 328: 300 Firefighters in 3.5 Weeks: How San Diego Built VR Search and Rescue Training with Captain J Harris
Most fire crews get few real repetitions on search and rescue. The calls are rare. The training is expensive. It takes companies out of service, and it adds injury and exposure risk.
San Diego Fire-Rescue built a different path.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Captain J Harris leads the program. The department partnered with XpertVR and built structured virtual reality training. Every riding position has role based benchmarks. The curriculum ties to UL FSRI research and the Firefighter Rescue Survey's first 3,000 rescues.
In the first rollout, more than 300 firefighters trained in three and a half weeks. The schedule filled. Crews asked when they could come back.
Topics covered:
- The four problems VR training solves: time, cost, injury risk, and gear exposure
- How San Diego worked through fire service skepticism
- The no fault learning environment
- Benchmarks built from the first 3,000 rescues data
- Targeted search and high percentage areas
- Training is lived, not lectured
- Shared crew rescue experiences and peer learning
- Three scenarios: passerby report, text from a trapped victim, single call smoke report
- The rollout: 300 firefighters in three and a half weeks
- What comes next: command training and hazmat scenarios
So take a listen to hear what he has to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
43 min - Episode 327: A Governance Problem, Not a Technology Problem: Inside Pratus with Roger Coleman and Sean Griffin
Every disaster review finds the same failure: communication. Crews on 9/11 passed handwritten notes. Agencies at the LA wildfires could not talk across radio bands. During Hurricane Maria, restoration trucks sat at a pier while their ship steamed away.
The pattern repeats because the lessons never reach the next operation.
Hello Smart Firefighting Community!
Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.
Roger Coleman served as a volunteer fire chief in New York's Eighth Battalion. Sean Griffin directed incident management at the White House for ten years across two administrations.
Together they built Pratus, the DisasterTech platform that pulls every data source into one view and uses AI to guide decisions. The US Coast Guard adopted it as its all theater common operating platform. The first mission: security for the 2026 World Cup and America 250 events.
Topics covered:
- How a fire chief and a White House incident manager joined forces
- What administration changes do to institutional knowledge
- A governance problem, not a technology problem
- AI checklists that cite the actual plan
- The single pane of glass: Teams, Azure, Esri, drones, body cams
- Communication failures from 9/11 to the LA wildfires
- The Coast Guard contract, the 2026 World Cup, and America 250
- Real time sit reps and same day after action reviews
- The trucks left at the pier during Hurricane Maria
- Gamified training and the edge hardware play with Darley
So take a listen to hear what they have to share.
Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
1 hr 20 min
About Smart Firefighting
From the publisher's feed
Smart Firefighting Podcast covers real-world deployments of smart technologies through conversations with technologists, innovators, companies, and forward-thinking public safety and government…
agencies. Learn from interviews with leaders as they share their insights and offer their expertise every week!
Host Kevin Sofen is a co-founding member of the Smart First Responder Community who loves to explore change management and technology in public safety.
Host Kevin Sofen is a co-founding member of the Smart First Responder Community who loves to explore change management and technology in public safety.
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