NFPA 1700, Connecting The Work

This episode features NFPA 1700 Committee Members George Healy, Murrey Loflin, Dan Madrzykowski, and Chris Stewart.

Episode hosted and produced by John Vance

We dive into the 2026 update of NFPA 1700 with a focus on search, lithium-ion hazards, and a cleaner common language for strategy and size-up. Research meets field experience to sharpen decisions, reduce confusion, and turn evidence into safer, faster operations.

 • evolution of NFPA 1700 and why it matters
 • what changed in 2026 across chapters 7, 9, 12, and 13
 • lithium-ion battery fires and contamination control
 • exterior fire control and strategy clarified
 • search and rescue data that shapes victim removal
 • making size up specific, actionable, and teachable
 • 1700 as the emerging standard of care and legal context
 • training, decon, and culture change for safer ops
 • future needs in commercial fires and large buildings
 • how policy, research, and command tie together
 
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This episode was recorded on January 7, 2026.

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Chapters

• 0:00 New Year Kickoff And Training Updates
• 5:25 Meet The Panel And Origins Of 1700
• 11:42 Why Evidence Matters More Than Tradition
• 16:00 What’s New In 1700: 2026 Edition
• 21:56 Real-World Impact For Big And Small Departments
• 27:40 Lithium-Ion Risks And On-Scene Decisions
• 34:48 Guidance Or Enforcement? Standard Of Care Debate
• 43:07 Strategy, Size Up, And Common Language
• 49:42 New Search And Rescue Findings
• 55:40 Preparing For The Next Revision
• 1:02:46 Closing Thoughts And Listener Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:41

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the B Shifter Podcast. I'm John Ferris, your host. Happy 2026. This is the first podcast of the new year. We are happy that you can be here. And today we're going to get into a topic that uh we've been talking about at the end of 2025, and that was NFPA 1700, what it means for fire ground operations. We've gathered an esteemed panel today. We've got George Healy, Dan Madrukowski, and Murray Laughlin with us that will be addressing the work that went into 1700, what that looks like, how it will continue to evolve, and some of the new components to this guide that will help us as fire service leaders, fire service commanders, company officers, whatever you're doing within your department, it is going to be a guidance for you to not only improve operations within your department, but give you a solid foundation of why we are doing the things that we're doing. So often with Blue Card, we talk about start with why. And the why is really the research that not only Dan Madrukowski, FSRI, put into this, but there was input from the IFF and other organizations. We had Murray Laughlin there, who did a lot of work as an investigator with NIOSH, bringing in his experience. We have major metropolitan uh firefighters, fire officers that came in, as well as folks from other smaller organizations. So it's going to be a fascinating discussion today, talking about 1700 and really the implications that it has for us as an industry. So stay tuned for that. Just a couple of reminders for you before we get into the discussion today is uh there are several new dates posted on bShifter.com for training in 2026. Uh, we're coming to Cobb County, Georgia, Ocala, Florida, Bowling Green, Ohio, Benton Harbor, Michigan, as well as our regular ongoing classes in Phoenix, Arizona. Those classes somehow it reach a point and they fill up very quickly. So if you're planning on training with us, either at the Mayday Management Workshop, the big box workshop, the strategic decision-making class, or the big one, our Blue Card Train the Trainer, where we instruct you on how to become a blue card instructor and what that certification process looks like and the attributes of having a strong command training program within your department, how that looks like. Those classes fill fast. So we we have a class coming up in March at the Alan V. Bernicini Command Training Center for a blue card train the trainer. That is our next opening. So if you uh are planning on getting folks, uh either your next generation of instructors, new instructors, or you yourself are interested in becoming an instructor, please sign on to bShifter.com. Secure your spot because they go very fast. And also with the uh big box workshops, we have limited availability. We worked with Shane Ray on that. And and Shane only has so much time to get out and teach. So once once those are full, they're full. We can't create new classes. So uh just want to remind you to do that. Speaking of, if you are a blue card instructor, stay tuned. We will have coming up a new webinar that will be out probably at the end of the month. And that webinar is going to address some of the other tweaks and changes that we make to the blue card program. With Blue Card, we live in command function number seven, where we are always reviewing and revising and looking at what needs to be tweaked based on new information that we get. And we continue to do that with the program. We say over and over again, Blue Card it talks about tactics. It is a platform to have those conversations within your department, but we're not preaching tactics to you. This is a command program, and there's components to that command program that need to be very solid within your organization. And we're going to continue to reinforce that in 2026. So look for that webinar. It's going to be free, it's going to be online. We'll do a live version and also a video on demand version. Without further ado, let's get into the panel discussion today, talking about the NFPA 1700 work uh with members of the committee. Well, we have an esteemed panel with us today who worked on NFPA 1700. And we first of all want to learn who they are. Let's start with uh George Healy. George, if you can give an introduction of yourself and your background and how you began your work with the NFPA 1700 process.

SPEAKER_04: 5:16

Thanks, John. George Healy, I'm uh closing on 35 years with the FDNY. I'm currently a deputy chief. I was fortunate enough to meet Dan back in 2006. Kind of what brought us together was Jerry Tracy certainly was the catalyst, but in January of 2006, I was the instant commander as a very new chief at a very significant fire for the FDNY. It was a wind-impacted fire. One of the things that that kind of linked it was that day, unbeknownst to me, I was standing in front of the very same building that 10 years prior to my fire claimed the life of Jimmy Williams. And actually Monday I was on shift and I went down to ladder 121 where Jimmy had been a fireman because it was the 30th anniversary of his passing. And Jimmy unfortunately died, and the building is 40-20 Beach Channel Drive, a city-owned and run housing project, a mattress fire became a blow-torching fire down a hallway, and tragically claimed Jimmy's life. From my perspective, very fortunate, Jimmy didn't die in vain. There were some very hard lessons learned. We learned about that building, some of the nuances of that building, how wind could potentially affect that building. And the day of my incident, the members had secured an area of refuge. They had that area of refuge on the same side of the building as the fire apartment. So we wouldn't have that flow path, that high pressure and low pressure. And that was all done before Dan educated us into that. So in 06, I had the fire. Jerry was the catalyst. It began my true education into things like flow path, fire dynamics, the growth of fires. It ignited a spark in me to try to better myself and the FDNY and hopefully the fire service to avoid these tragedies. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02: 7:23

Thanks, George. And we appreciate you being here today. Let's talk to Murray Laughlin. Murray, uh, give us your introduction and how you got involved in all of this.

SPEAKER_01: 7:33

Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to be here this morning. I I really appreciate it. I got involved with the technical committee as a backup for Tim Mariner. Tim was one of the original members of the technical committee. And when Tim uh retired, I became the uh the principal member. Um, at the time I was uh uh working for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the firefighter fatality investigation and prevention program. And I actually went to the public comment meeting for uh the uh 2021 edition just as a guest and then became a member after that. So it it's it it's it's been a um such a pleasure and an honor to be part of that. And also the the document has has truly helped from the standpoint of our the NIOSH investigation reports is has truly been uh a very valuable resource. So that's uh that's that's how I got involved.

SPEAKER_02: 8:47

And we're really no stranger to Dan Madrakowski. Dan's been at at several of the hazard zone conferences, continually educating the fire service. But for those of you who may not know, Dan, give us an introduction of yourself and how you got involved in all of this to this point.

SPEAKER_03: 9:02

Good morning, John, and thank you for the opportunity. So I've been conducting research, fire research for about 40 years now, and specifically fire research with the fire service for working on 30 years and it evolved over time. I used to be with the uh National Bureau of Standards that changed into the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and as federal government funding limited what we could do for the fire service to some some degree degree, it was uh slow moving, but we were making some progress. Then about 10 years ago, I got an opportunity to join UL. And specifically, we're now part of the UL Research Institutes, and uh I I'm the senior director of research for the Fire Safety Research Institute, and they funded us very well. We've also uh gotten a fair number of government grants, and with those resources and great staff, a great team 10 years ago. There were four engineers here, and now we have about 50 or so on the engineering team on the research team, and they're all excellent, and looking at experts in modeling, fire materials, firefighting tactics, it all kind of comes together to help the fire service. And when 1700 was started, Smokey Dyer got that process going by writing a letter to the NFPA uh standards council and asking for a standard guide in firefighting, structural firefighting. And he compared what was going on with the research for the fire service as to what had happened years ago for the fire investigation community. And uh Smokey and I were both on the uh NFPA 921 technical committee, and when 921 first got started, there were large professional organizations for fire investigators and other very notable fire investigators that were against the development of the guide for fire investigation. And and part of it was that as science was being introduced or evidence-based practices, there was also a mythology that was being introduced out there. And what was discovered was that the fire investigators had learned how to do a task, and they learned those tasks very well, but they didn't understand why they were doing it. And as a result, as the context of their work changed, say the fuel in the building changed from wooden floors and wool carpets to polyurethane carpeting, nylon carpeting, polyurethane padding, those sorts of things. This idea of what formed a spill pattern in the based on the fuel load changed pretty dramatically. That you could pour gasoline on the floor or you might melt plastic on the floor, and it both has the same kind of resulting pattern. So that guide and the evolution of that guide really changed the business of fire investigation and the reliability of fire investigation. And he saw a similar thing happening with the fire service, where we were doing a lot of research to help the fire service understand a cause and effect methodology to the fire behavior, to their impact in the fire behavior due to venting, due to use of certain kind of hose streams, or even how their hose streams operated. Where's the water going? Do you even understand where the water goes? And uh those kind of things were not understood. They were not in the guides, they were not in the training. And again, this was something that fire departments, the senior firefighters, if you will, or the barn bosses, or whatever you want to, however you want to refer to them, they learned over time due to experience. But as you know, the staffing in the fire service changes, and not everybody gets to build that experience before they're confronted with a fire that they weren't prepared for due to the training they had. And so the idea was to build up more research resources to try to fill in those gaps to help firefighters at all level, officers, chiefs, and and frontline firefighters make better decisions on the fire ground and understand why they were taking the actions that they were taking. So they would understand what the outcome would likely be. And so, again, there was a mythology that's not how we've always done it, what's going on? People are trying to change the fire service, oh, they don't want us to go in buildings anymore, oh, that we can't vent anymore. You know, all these things which were not true. We were just trying to provide a wide range of cause and effect resources. So NFPA 1700 became a great vehicle for codifying that information so that everybody gets the same level of information. They can always look for more and get the reports, get the training videos that we have online, whatever they want to do, but at least looking at 1700, you get a baseline of what information is out there, what is this document based on, what is the evidence that this document is based on? And of course, it's not just strictly the research results, it's got to be the bringing together of the research results and people's experience. And that's really what makes it makes it very powerful. That fighting fight, firefighting experience, and then balancing that with the research outcomes. Sorry, that may have taken a little longer than you intended, but sort of lays the groundwork for 1700 and how we all got involved.

SPEAKER_02: 15:11

Well, that's perfect because that was one of our questions is really how this started from the beginning. So that that helps us with some of that history. There was an original standard that came out, a guide in 2021. In retrospect, what was the evolution from that guide to where we are now in 2026?

SPEAKER_03: 15:31

So in 2021, basically the research that we had at the time that that guide was being developed, and it was basically a five-year process. The latest results stopped in 2017. And since 2017, over the past eight years, there have been hundreds and hundreds of full-scale tests just run by the fire safety research institute alone to examine things like search, lithium-ion batteries, coordinated attack, basement fires, low-intake, high exhaust fires, things to develop more information and more implementable data implementable by the fire service, these very specific types of fire events, many of which sadly have a long history of killing firefighters over the over the years. In many cases, with the low intake, high exhaust, there have been a number of instances over the past few decades where multiples of firefighters have died in a in a given event, or wind-impacted fires, things like that, or structural collapse. So we've been trying to learn about all those things again so people can make better decisions and prevent that life loss or prevent some of those injuries by being able through size up to understand what's going on. So some of the, you know, just big highlight changes are 18 more research outputs, uh reports, including some from NIOSH, were added to chapter four, which sort of is the baseline of here's where this information comes from, that fills out the rest of the guidance document. There was additions to chapter seven, building construction, with regard to lithium-ion batteries and battery energy storage systems, both residential and commercial, as well as battery-powered products that people have in their homes, such as battery-powered scooters and things of that nature, which have resulted in a lot of lives lost in New York City prior to them putting in some new new regulations. Um changes, and and Chris might speak to this. I know he worked on it heavily of strategies. And how do you how do you address how do you address the fire? What are you looking for? What do you want to include in size up? Also, some modifications to the firefighting chapters and most specifically chapter 12, which are specific occupancies, and how to address some of the challenges with those occupancies. An entirely brand new chapter is chapter 13, which is addressing search and rescue. There's also some modifications, additions to looking at firefighter contamination and decontamination that should take place and things of that nature. So I I think almost every chapter has some change or revision to it. But again, the lithium, the addition of lithium-ion batteries, the basement fires in in particular, some of the low-intake, high exhaust things in chapter 12 and uh search, those are really the big changes.

SPEAKER_00: 18:51

Yeah, so so of all those changes and that development, the interesting part is it's likely only to accelerate from here. Meaning, the with with all the research that's continuing and we're gonna see development from the 2026 to the 2031. And, you know, maybe maybe we have an idea, maybe we don't, of just how far we'll go in 2031. Where where do we see the impact today? Like George, you know, you're you're there with representing a very, very large fire department, the largest fire department, right? Murray's looking at it from an investigative angle, or had been looking at it from an investigative angle, like and and how is this going to support their work? So, what do we see the the value of it today for the American Fire Service?

SPEAKER_04: 19:39

I would say, Chris, as as Dan mentioned, I think, you know, a significant thing that we can't overlook with this process is that it it very much continues and will always continue to be a living document, right? I mean, I think a lot of our departments will develop an SOP and they get put on a shelf. And how many revisions do we make over time? My department back in the late 60s started with with our written procedures, our written SOPs, right? Ladder three, which kind of at the time when it was first released, my understanding is there was there was a lot of concern. There was a lot of, you know, that works here in New York City, but maybe not in another area of New York City because we kind of do it differently. And now all of a sudden you want these five boroughs to be approaching it the same way. It that's not how we do things. So a lot of people had concern, a lot of people had animosity. And as we know, a lot of times the fire service is known for not wanting to embrace change and and see the possibilities that change can bring. We started formalizing documents in the late 60s. It wasn't until 2012 after my department went full in with understanding the value and the work that Dan and Steve were doing at the time, started that list and then rolled into UL. 2012, we finally had a document on ventilation. You know, this is the New York City Fire Department. I think when I was studying for lieutenant, I started my career as a student in probably 1994. I think at the time they said there was 10,000 pages of written material that were testable for the lieutenant's exam in the New York City Fire Department. Yet there was not one document on ventilation, right? We have 142 truck companies. We pride ourselves, right, in our in our truck company operations, getting a member to the roof, nothing shall deter the roof there. All right. And we we kind of know a little bit more now why we wrote that. But we very, very truck-centric in our mindset and in our operations. But yet, where was our education? And and one of the other things that that kind of you know greatly impacted my uh my career was as a young fireman on March 28, 1994, I worked at Daytour in five truck uh down down in Soho. I had a wonderful tour. That night I worked in nine truck. Okay. All those years ago, I still remember where I was. And why is that? Because John Drennan, Chris Diedenberg, and Jimmy Young died in the flow path of what should have been uh a uh small one-bedroom apartment fire. Uh okay. Uh and at the time we thought that the floor varnish uh caused this uh uh event uh that was uh we kind of thought unprecedented uh right. But as Dan mentions now, we've introduced these new terms into the fire service and we need to understand these terms uh because they matter, uh right? Low intake and high exhaust is a is a big deal. Uh the coordination of ventilation with suppression is of the utmost importance on the fire ground so we don't place our people uh in an environment that their gear cannot protect them from. Uh uh and the New York City fire department. I came into the firehouse in June. By September, I was standing in front of my first church. Uh in 35 years after 9-11, we've buried more than 60 uh members of my department. Uh it used to be several line of duty deaths a year. We don't do that anymore. I'm not gonna say we're perfect, I'm not gonna say we get it right all the time, but through education, uh, we will build tactical discipline. Through education, we will make our operations better for us. And that translates into better for the the citizens of New York.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

That's that's super powerful. Yeah, absolutely. Murray, from your angle, what do you how do you see the the the value of this for you know what you did investigatively with NIOSH and now, you know, working with us, moving kind of my kind of forward with the incident command portion of it?

SPEAKER_01: 24:06

One of the things that I found very beneficial was not only being able to be part of the technical committee, but then as a person that uses the document as we develop or when I was with NIOS to develop the investigation reports. And as Dan mentioned a few minutes ago, chapter 12 was was absolutely godsend because you could go to based upon the type of occupancies. We went through issues with row houses, basement fires, modular homes, uh even one and two family. So being able to to to reference 1700 uh uh in my personal opinion, I and and I hopefully you all will agree that it added so much validity to the investigation reports. And you know, I was also blessed. Steve and Dan would review reports as as we put them out and uh would would help uh add the information that was needed, uh, kind of maybe even beyond 1700, but still it wasn't uh we got rid of the objective side of it and went to the made a very objective uh uh report, and and that's what we were we're looking for. And and that still continues on today since I retired in May. I still keep in touch and with the investigators and 1700 is a very um uh important part of when they do produce investigation reports.

SPEAKER_00: 25:47

Dan the vast majority of this is you know found foundational for for your work and and the work that other researchers have done. For for today, how does having this document uh support like you furthering the the work that you've done? And how how is it supporting you garnering the support you need to do more research?

SPEAKER_03: 26:14

I I think the big thing is showing that there's some effective change, change for good that's going on out in the field, going out out in the fire service. And I think where 1700 plays a big role in there is assisting with communication. Anyone that's read any of the NIOSH documents, uh typically one of the contributing factors that happened on the fire ground was miscommunication or poor communication, and I think that that happens across the fire service at large. The fire service in the United States is very local, very regional. Everybody has their own language, and you know, as we started 1700, there weren't even any really good uh definitions for offensive strategy or defensive strategy. And so different fire chiefs may take a different opinion of that, and the boil-down version is if you're standing outside, we must be defensive, and if you're standing inside, you must be offensive, and that's really not accurate. An offensive strategy is currently defined by 1700 is what is your intent? If your intent is to make interior attack, uh do searches, rescues as needed, and extinguish that fire, that is an offensive strategy. Now, that doesn't mean that you might not use tactics such as an exterior fire attack, water through the window from the outside to initially knock that fire down, soften that target as others are inside, or just prior to you, you know, making entry. And so I think the definitions now make that clear. Similarly, with the size of buildings today, whether they're a data center or a warehouse or multi-unit housing facility, you might be in the fire building, but be defensive, right? As a as a method of preventing spread and limiting the damage or protecting avenue of egress for getting victims out, things like that. So I think that clarified that. In this edition, in fact, they removed the term transitional attack because it was used so differently across the country, some ways in a good manner, some ways in a manner that people felt was disparaging, if you will. Well, if we're doing transitional attack, that means we're transitioning from offensive mode to defensive mode. And they, but yet others were applying that just to a quick hit of water for 15 seconds from the outside before you make entry. So they they eliminated that and trying to get more pure English, if you will. Exterior fire control, that's what that tactic is called. Can you use it as part of an offensive strategy? 100%. Similarly, for some of the search activities, is it a window-initiated search or a door-initiated search, as opposed to various acronyms or or whatnot that get confusing or misunderstood? So I think the document's really powerful there. And again, as we see that some of the research results are being implemented and that the fire departments are having a good good value from them, effectively meaning it's making them more effective at firefighting. And if they're more effective firefighters, then in turn their safety and the safety of those that they serve is gonna improve. And I think that's part of what drives it. What else drives the research is our changing world. You know, 15 years ago, nobody had a hoverboard in their house. They didn't exist. And now, you know, then about 13 years ago, they became an early Christmas present. And I think over 50% of them got recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission because they did catch fire or were at high risk for catching fire. And that was America's introduction into some of the lower cost uh not well regulated lithium-ion batteries. And then New York in the past five years has just had uh a series of fires over the years that resulted, I think uh the highest were 18 fatalities in 2023. Does that sound right, George? And they had 200 and some fires, and most of them were driven by these e-bikes or sit-on scooters that delivery people would would drive. And and last year there was really a tragic incident where a delivery driver, food delivery driver, parked his bike inside the pizza shop in the rear hallway of the pizza shop where he uh was delivering pizzas from. And uh while he went to go pick up the next order, there happened to be a grandma in the bathroom, and the bathroom was also located in that hallway. And while she was in the bathroom, the uh battery in the scooter caught fire and exploded, and she was trapped and killed in that as a result of that fire. So New York and a few other cities have taken legislation that says you have to have batteries that are certified by a third party, such as UL, that the batteries pass certain safety standards, the design of the battery, the battery management system, the charging system, and how it's implemented in the device before you can sell it or use it in the city of New York. And that has been quite effective. Their enforcement of it has been effective to the point where New York City fire marshals were arresting people that were violating the law and confiscating and destroying all their all their illegal property, illegal batteries. And so the the battery numbers have slowed some. But I think the education of the consumer has helped greatly. Like, don't charge these overnight. Try not to charge them inside, or if you're charging them inside, be alert, be awake, watch out for smells or hisses or things like that. Uh, make sure you're using the appropriate charger with the batteries. And I I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, George, so last year there was just one fatality. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_04: 32:52

Yeah, I believe we dropped to just one. I mean, we are still experiencing some incidents, but it seems that that uh public safety messaging has been widely broadcast and well received. And hopefully, you know, with being fewer and fewer incidents of people being able to, you know, sell and purchase devices that haven't been certified within the city limits. So they're everywhere, right? That they're they're part of our built environment now. But I think there's been some good work between the fire service and and people like Dan and Steve and the Fire Safety Research Institute at UL. And we're making some real headway with our elected officials to educate them and saying, you know, you're part of this process, you're part of the process of ensuring that there's ordinances in place to try to keep the environment as safe as it can be.

SPEAKER_02: 33:48

Dan, with the with the addition of this uh lithium-ion battery sections, I think in two different chapters, how how does that talk about fire ground operations and specifically the way that we're making our decisions when when we have a known lithium-ion battery fire? And how are how are we going to go about that using this guidance?

SPEAKER_03: 34:07

Well, and I I think some of it is you may not know that you have a lithium-ion battery fire. Some cases it's pretty obvious when you roll up and it's a you know commercial battery energy storage system. There's certainly some guidance and lessons learned from experiences that have occurred, such as in Surprise Arizona, for example, uh, which is again documented in 1700. But I think part of it is the expectation that these lithium-ion batteries are everywhere. Everyone's house has lithium-ion batteries. Now, the battery itself may not be of the potential to explode and hurt you by the time you arrive. Maybe that happened already. But I think from the concern of contamination and and effectively poisoning, if you're not wearing all your protective PPE and being on air, I think that's uh a very important thing for the fire service to take away. If you suspect that batteries are involved, and in most people's houses, they may have a laptop that has batteries, cell phones that have batteries, portable tools that have batteries, maybe they have lawn equipment that has batteries, you know. So almost any garage, basement, or bedroom could have some amount of batteries in it. No smoke is good for you, but I again I know there are some traditions where I've been in light smoke and I haven't been, you know, clipped in and it's been all right. You know, I got a cough, you know, I got some soot in my nose, but you know, not a big deal. Well, now it can be a big deal because the the chemicals are a bigger deal, I should say. It's the chemicals that are coming out of the batteries, the metals and whatnot, they're it's really toxic. The toxicity of the smoke is is getting uh worse. And so although the guidance has always been out there that you should not be exposed to smoke, you should be on air, uh, I would say there's some YouTube video evidence that would uh indicate that that guidance was not always taken. And so, again, 1700 is a document where again encouraging, recommending that firefighters get really serious about taking care of their respiratory system and protecting themselves, and also then cleaning their gear afterwards and and being careful of how you take your even to the point of how you take your gloves off or the hood off, because you can cross-contaminate yourself with that, and then the next thing you know, you're drinking some water or grabbing a snap or something, and now ingesting, you know, heavy metals that are on the outside of your gear. So there's still research going on about the best way to clean the gear, but you know, this idea of shower within the hour and uh doing a gross decon with a scrub brush, soap, and water is still really good guidance.

SPEAKER_00: 37:12

So, Dan, you mentioned 921, NFP and 921 previously. And I actually had a question when I was talking about this at our conference. Is 921 in a lot of sense in the fire investigative world and that has become in certain ways rather prescriptive of, you know, these are the things you must do or have to do, or the the order of process in in some of that, where 1700 is a little bit different. So they the question was posed to me is do we see people trying to use 1700 as an enforcement tool for the fire service? And and and I had not considered that, right? And I'm thinking, like that, I said, I my answer is I don't know. But my my feeling is that there we were very specific about considerations and not prescriptive you shall type, must type language in this. So I'm curious of for all three of you, what kind of what is your take and your vision on that? Because I I uh I think that's an important consideration moving forward.

SPEAKER_03: 38:16

Well, I mean, 921 is still a guide, it is not a standard, so it really does not have per, it does not have shells, it has may and and you might and considerations.

SPEAKER_00: 38:30

And we've seen it used that way though, right, Dan? Like I think in a lot of sure, you know, in proceeding, so to speak.

SPEAKER_03: 38:37

And and the reason 921 is, you know, so thick and as 1700 will grow is because they want it to be an educational document. So it does have the whys and the explanations and whatnot with it. But as you recognize, 921 is also considered the standard of care for that industry. So even though officially it's a guide, in terms of legal usage, it's the standard of care. And uh we've already seen it. There was a lawsuit filed as a result of a line of duty death in Illinois, and the experts' uh report that drove the jury to settle in the favor of the firefighters' uh family was largely derived from 1700. That you know, they hadn't had training on this, they didn't do that, they you know, didn't consider all these other things. So, between some of the things that FEMA might require through NIMS, if you're getting FEMA money and things like that, did you do this or did you not do this? I think 1700 will evolve as the standard of care for the fire service. And if you're a fire department that is not following the guideline, the guidance, again, doesn't specifically tell you how how you must do something, but so your folks even are they aware of that information and are they using that to make decisions on any given fire is gonna become an issue. And and I mean this happened before in a uh a training line of duty death, I think in Lairdsville, New York, if I remember correctly, where you know, 1403 was out there with regard to live fire training and and how live fire training should be conducted. And the individuals that were responsible for that training, as I recall, basically indicated they had never heard of 1403, and I believe that. Result in one of them going to jail. So if you're gonna be a firefighter, if you're gonna be a fire officer, if you're gonna be a chief, you need to know your job. And part of knowing your job in this case is we can't expect you to embrace the whole world of all the research that's going on at universities, at FSRI, at NFPA, all these different places. However, once it kind of gets collected and there's a consensus among the fire service that says, hey, here's the important stuff, and we're writing it down in 1700, you need to pay attention to that.

SPEAKER_04: 41:14

I I would agree with Dan. I mean, you know, I teach down in the Illinois Institute and I get picked up at O'Hare Airport and you're driving down the highway there. And how many signs are for this lawyer or that lawyer, or you're down in the South on 95? That's where our world has has gone. We have to realize that. But, you know, I just think that the fire service does need to have the realization that there is information out there, that information can benefit our people. There's been a chorus of people involved in all of these efforts, right? The NFPA process is a consensus process. Dan might, you know, because Dan's an encyclopedia. How many people has UL had on their on their technical panels in the last decade? Hundreds. Hundreds. So, you know, all of these things have been a consensus. It's it's not the gospel because it came from Dan Madrikowski's lips or Steve Kerber's or Sean Ducrane's or George Healy's. The fire services come together and we've worked through some of our challenges and our problems. And we recognize these problems most times when we stood in front of a church. So it's necessary that we do this together. It's necessary that this is a breathing, living document, that we force it into a revision. So that we are as current as the built environment is presenting us with additional hazards. It is important that we are as current as the research allows us to document and have the data to say this is this is what clean looks like. These are the hazards associated with this new construction technique or this this new energy storage system. Because, right, everyone's saying lithium-ion is going to be in the rearview mirror in the next several years, and there'll there'll be there'll be a new science that's gonna bring us into the into the next decade. So I think the process, is it perfect? It's not, but it is a consensus process, and you don't have to be, you know, one of the chosen. It we do accept input. Anyone can get involved, anyone can hear what we're saying, anyone can comment on on what we're saying and doing, and then we try to work through that and come up with what makes the most sense. And we are very uh keenly aware that if we paint ourselves into a into a box or into a corner, well then we can't make command decisions on the fire ground at times. Because if we deviate from that, you know, 1-800 somebody is more than willing to pick up the phone and uh and try to help the grieving family.

SPEAKER_01: 44:11

One of the things I was gonna say, uh I've been involved with the NFPA process since 1986. I started it back with the uh development of NFA 1500 with Chief Brunicini and and continuing on today, and and you know, just uh as an example, when 1500 came out, everybody was up in arms as this was gonna put it into the fire service. Uh we're we're taking all the airbase toys away, and uh it but it's it's continued and it's improved, and as as we you know move into the second edition of 1700, I I totally agree with what Dan said about if you're a firefighter, an officer, or a chief, uh you you really have to to be aware of what what's happening. And it was probably one of the things that was most evident when we would do our investigations and do the uh the interviews. And with our interview process, we never had any questions, but how people if an issue came up like with as an example with 1700, there there wasn't much of a response. And so uh, you know, I think as much as we've tried, we we continue to work very hard to to to bring this to light.

SPEAKER_00: 45:42

One of the questions that I've had recently is uh an operations chief, a fire chief asked that, hey, do you think I should use this in a promotional process? The 1700 document, right? There's a lot of things out there that we can include in promotional processes, and and it runs the gamut of of worthwhile to you know, likely not worthwhile. And so, so to me, it was like very interesting. I'm like, well, if you're gonna start talking about industry standard, and I really like the term Dan uses the standard of care, if you will, then I think people should start considering that this document should be a part of that. Because you, if you're gonna be an officer, if you're gonna be responsible for making decisions that impact either the incident andor other folks that you're supervising at that incident, then yeah, you probably should consider that, right? And make that or figure out how that folds into your policies and procedures and and that your policies and procedures somehow match it. But in some way, there should be a connection point to that standard of care. And and I think that's a that's an important element to be considered here as we as we move forward.

SPEAKER_04: 46:51

Chris, because I was just gonna echo on that. I know when we we did some, we tried to get some historical perspective in the FDNY, you know, when NATIS 3 was introduced, there was a lot of of concerns and and people voiced maybe you know some of those issues that they felt were were were of importance. And we reached out and got some historical perspective from Vinny Dunn when we were working on the documents that we were producing for Wind Impacted and the use of alternate strategies and such. And he said it's gonna take five years to integrate into the FDNY. It's a big ship we have to build, we have to move. It's got to be testable. So you have to go through testing cycles. So people are studying it and understanding it and tearing it apart. And the reality is there is gonna be a small populace in the fire service that's never gonna embrace it. And maybe it's gonna take 10 or 15 years, but in that 10 or 15 year time, they'll be out of the fire service. I mean, when I came in and started my studying, Lattice III was, you know, the gospel to me. I didn't know of the arguments and and and kind of the discord that that that came with that document. It was it was tried, it was tested, it was true. It was something I needed to know verbatim. And I think as time goes on, and and a big step forward for the Swire service is us embracing it as something that should be part of our our testing and promotion process.

SPEAKER_00: 48:21

Yeah, I I I certainly I certainly agree with that. And that's something we're wrestling and talking about here locally is okay, hey, this is out. Now what are we what are we doing to adjust, right? And uh yeah, thank you. Hey, Dan, let's talk a little bit about chapter 13. And because it's new, right? It's like it's the newest chapter, and and now be uh it's in there because there is research and data supporting some things about search and rescue and life safety and those types of things. So what do you what do you see as the biggest improvement or answer, I guess, if you will, that that that chapter is going to provide for us?

SPEAKER_03: 49:01

Again, search the search studies incorporated everything that we had learned to date, whether it was order of ventilation, different modes of suppression, initial exterior attack, interior attack, and what buys the victim the most time. And so there were some findings there that in many cases, if you can isolate the victim from the flow path and open a window where you're isolating that victim, that's the best opportunity to get them out of the environment until you can safely get them out of the building. Many times firefighters might pick up a victim and the firefighters are in full turnout gear. And then, as they may want to egress the building that still has an active fire in it, they could be taking a path that's actually endangering that victim or causing more damage to that victim. The idea about how important it is for the elevation of that victim to be low when you're bringing them out in a smoky environment, as opposed to high up. So we are able to measure the hazards that the victim would encounter, the exposures, thermal and chemical, that they would encounter all along various paths of travel out of a house, so that we could study that and say, you know, which which is best for them, which is best for the victim. And so there's guidance, and again, it doesn't tell you you must do this. It says if you do it this way, these are things to consider. If you're doing it another way, these are things to consider. And uh, we have data to back that up, I believe. Overall, there's about 40 full-scale tests that FSRI ran, but also the tech panel was very valuable in that a number of the departments did timing drills, if you will, to get some enlightenment about how long does it take you to move Rescue Randy down the hall. And I think the preconceptions that people had about their own departments were that they were shocked about the the speed that they were able or not able to attain in doing that under smoke conditions or fire conditions. And one one thing that came out of that again, it wasn't necessarily part of the study, but we found out that the crews that moved people fastest were able to remove victims fastest, had nothing to do with they weren't necessarily the folks that were in the best physical shape or the youngest or any of that. They were the folks repeatedly that had recently trained on that, and folks that had recently trained on that, it was demonstrated they were able to remove those victims much faster, at least in their drills. So, again, the importance of training, the importance of keeping your tools honed and and sharpened, both your physical tools and your your personal tools, if you will. And that's you know that that's really important. So it goes through greater detail than we certainly have time for here. But I think chapter 13 is something if people are gonna go to the NFTA website and then look at their free view version of the standard that they might want to jump into 12 to look at the changes there. If they're an officer, they may want to jump to chapter nine for strategic considerations and look at the modifications there. And and then, of course, chapter 13, which is brand new.

SPEAKER_02: 52:43

Well and and strategic considerations, what were some of the things that came up out of that? And and how did how did you arrive at the uh the recommendations in that chapter?

SPEAKER_03: 52:53

I think Chris ran that uh that that group, so I'll let him go.

SPEAKER_00: 52:57

Yeah, it was really a little bit of what Dan talked about before is uh an improved explanation of a lot of the things that were actually already in there. Is we we talk about size up regularly. The the vast majority of the fire service talks about size up, but let's put some clear definition and perspective on that size up. What are we looking for? You know, for instance, George was very, very particular about any time we talked about size up is that ventilation profile. Let's make sure the ventilation profile is is connected to this in a way that that you know I hadn't been thinking about in uh with as much detail. And so, so a lot of that kind of came together to develop, you know, how do we actually apply risk management? Where does it fit? Because we'll say, and and Murray will write in his reports, and Dan will support and and and George will talk about inside his organization, you know, risk management. We need to be better at that, but how does that work and where does it connect? And it and it's got to connect between our ability to size things up, size things up, and then actually do something, right? That action part of it. So so that risk management is in between. And then, and then to Dan's point about defining strategy, what does it really mean and connecting intent to it? It's not just the action you're taking that's taking place right in that in that moment. It's no, no, we're gonna do these things and then these things and then these things in a progressive, kind of coordinated way, and they're from what position we're gonna be doing that. And then lastly, the action. You've come gone through this process. What are you going to do? And so the interesting part is the size up in chapter nine connects to the size up part in chapter 12, and it connects to the size up part in chapter 13, right? The the the occupancy specific and the and the rescue specific thing. So, and it's uh at least from my perspective, it's be made it a little bit more universally helpful for everybody to kind of get this perspective as we say size up, but all right, what does size up look like? And what should I really be considering in a more common language type approach?

SPEAKER_04: 55:07

And Chris, I was gonna echo that as you kind of close. That, you know, we have to understand that, you know, there's there's the fire service spectrum, there's a lot of departments that don't have the experience, that don't see the sets and reps of responding and sizing up, and and and that can be a real challenge for them and a real hurdle. And maybe they don't have the 100 years of experience of some other departments. You know, we brought some like-minded people together that worked with the fire research community, and we tasked them. We tasked them with our challenges, our problems. They didn't design tests. We worked together to say, this is what we experienced, let's try to recreate it, let's see what the data comes forth, and let's have tactical considerations that we can implement in our organizations. And it was it was early on servicing the Chicagos and the New Yorks, and LA got involved. But Chicago, New York, and LA is not the the entire U.S. fire service, or the global fire service. And by having this document that's that's living and breathing, it's gonna get bigger and stronger and better. And as Dan said, it it's not one specific research study. The pyramid started to be built 40 years ago when when when Dan found this this this love and then found disciples along the way. And it's it's building off those those very first when we went out to Chicago and we did some burns, and Dan starts talking about heat release rate and things that as a firefighter, that wasn't in my vocabulary. I knew BTUs and I didn't really understand BTUs, but everyone likes, well, how come we're talking about watts and megawatts? What about BTUs? Well, explain to me what a BTU is. Well, it's a brittle British thermal unit. What does that mean to us as a firefighter? Most of us didn't really know, but it was the buzzword, right? Hopefully we've made the science understandable. All right, and there's some truths. And and Pete Van Dorp was great. Keep it simple. Water creates and maintains survivable spaces. I don't care if you're exterior fire control or interior fire control. The fire doesn't understand it, the fire doesn't know it, the fire's being impacted by water, and water creates and maintains survivable spaces. That's a truth that the fire service should have in their back pocket, right? Ventilation is not a fire control tactic. We're not anti-ventilation, but we need to have the three C's: control, communicate, and coordinate, tactical ventilation. We have to show up, we have to get a 360, we have to understand that vent profile and understand what's going on in the structure, and then implement the most appropriate tactic and strategy to impact that fire and gain control of it within that first five to 10 minutes that we're on scene. It's good for the civilians, it's good for the fire service. And we have to get better at that. We have to be students of the fire service.

SPEAKER_02: 58:12

Guys, as we start to wrap this up, and George said it. This is a living, breathing document. It's it's going to continue to evolve. What does this group think will be the emerging issues when this goes to get revised in 2031?

SPEAKER_04: 58:29

I'm just a dumb fireman, but we probably don't even know yet. Dan probably has some ideas because he's like this mad scientist. But who knows what's next, right? You know, maybe it's the the bamboo that we're using in certain places in the world as their scaffolding, right? We've we've dealt with our our ethos, we've dealt with our metal cladding. You know, these systems are coming to a city near us and a city near you, and and and these hazards are gonna emerge, and we're gonna have to first identify them and then ask nice people like Dan to try to help us figure them out. Dan, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03: 59:11

I think there's gonna be from a research perspective, we need to look at more and more commercial. I think we've done a fair job of getting some good framework out there for the fire service for residential. But commercial brings some other issues. And as we mentioned earlier, the size of buildings is just getting incredible. And this idea that you're gonna go in the front door and stretch 400 feet, 300 feet, maybe even 100 feet in heavy smoke conditions in a relatively unknown environment is is not realistic. And so, again, how does size up affect this? How do you uh look at the building? Where where is your entry point? And I think again, you know, there's been people have talked about training scars that you know, when you show up at the burn building, there's no question that you're going in the burn building that day, and there's no question where you're going in, and you know, all these other things that uh we really need to get firefighters, firefighter level to think start thinking about what am I seeing? We're the first two engines, my officer is the instant commander, and where are we gonna how are we gonna approach this to do the best for saving lives? And and I I think those are those are issues. That are going to come up also when you're flowing water in a commercial space. Where does it go? Is it a you know bar joy ceiling that's just destroying your water stream that if you're aimed up at the ceiling, you can't get it more than 15, 20 feet away from you, understanding some of these things. So I think bigger buildings, commercial buildings, I think that's uh where some work is needed and some better understanding. And the other thing is the hazard. We're still doing processing data to understand uh the contamination from lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles, you know, TVs, cars, Mockeis, Teslas, those kind of things. And uh, what gets on the gear, and then what's the best way to clean it off the gear. And again, as as there are more and more electric battery-powered vehicles or battery-powered tools, that's gonna be a bigger issue. I know that you know, some cities have addressed in the construction industry, the construction industry, like overnight, went from pneumatic powered tools to battery powered tools, and uh as a result of that, there are now hundreds of batteries that need to get charged overnight. And if one of them catches fire and gets catches the other batteries on fire, by the time the fire department gets there, they've lost a building that's under construction. And so I believe Boston and a few other cities have put in some ordinances where they require them to build a charging hut that has non-combustible material, you know, such as two layers of uh of 5 eighths chipboard or so, and that they do the charging there so that will contain that fire, contain that damage for a bit to give the firefighters a chance. So I think there's a lot of things with emerging technologies that we're going to better understand, and and other emerging technologies that have nothing to do with the fire, I think, are also going to impact the fire service. And that's everybody having a camera and many, many cities using drones. And it may not be the fire department using the drones, it may be the police department that's using the drones, filming the fire department actions. Just yesterday I was speaking with an individual that's investigating a near miss for their department doing an after-action report, and they have excellent drone footage from their police department, and it really shows the behavior of the fire and the structure. It shows what the firefighters are doing or not doing. And I think those realities of having tools that help you do a better after-action report so you can really understand some of those cause and effect are also going to be a big driver in change in the fire ground.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:20

And Murray, you've been at this a long time. You you've not only been on the front end of standards and guides, but also the investigation end of things. Where do you see the emerging trends coming for the the next revision? Where are we going?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:35

Well, one, the work that was done in this new edition on the size of Chris and George and Dan, what they put together was phenomenal because uh in our investigations, that's uh the initial breakdown. And I think the more information that we provide is is is uh beneficial to the fire service. I totally agree with Dan about the commercial fires. In Virginia Beach, I would put this up against everybody against in a in a single family, but once we got a got into a commercial fire, we used to have a saying we took a residential mentality to a commercial fire. And I know Nash isn't fishing finishing up an investigation down in Georgia, more a fatality occurred, and and that was the kind of the common denominator. So I think the more that we we we look at that, the the the better off we are. And but uh it's it's as I think George said, a living document that's gonna truly be a wonderful resource for for the fire service.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:47

Chris, do you have any other final questions or thoughts before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:51

Yeah, it's just interesting listening to these guys talk about what they're seeing as, you know, where we're going in the future. And and the the part that, because it's near and dear to our heart, is that all right, how does an incident commander manage all this, right? So we're gonna we're gonna grow the knowledge and understanding that they need to have and and maybe change or more the systems and the process and the the things that we use to manage these incidents have has to keep pace, right? Because the IC needs to be able to be able to lead the incident, not necessarily be a passenger, right? And and and to that. So that's going to be an interesting connection piece and and make making sure that we keep that focused, you know, as we move forward.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:36

Gentlemen, it's been very educational. I wish we had all the time in the world, but I think as we continue to dig into this, I'm sure more questions will come up. We we encourage everyone to go out there and review 1700, talk about it at your department, be you know, have those meetings where maybe there's a part of it that you're not really doing right now, and you need to try to implement it or get some education. And of course, I think the biggest point today is that ongoing training that we need to continue to train and continue to educate ourselves on this. George Healy, Dan Madrukowski, Murray Laughlin, thank you so much for your time today, and thanks for being on the Beat Shifter Podcast with us.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:15

Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:18

Well, we forgot the timeless tactical truth today. We will get to that on the next episode next week. Happy 2026. And thank you all for listening and participating with us here on the Beat Shifter Podcast. Please like and subscribe, share it with your friends until next week. We'll talk to you later, and thanks for being here.