B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Big Box To Mega
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This episode features National Fire Sprinkler Association President Shane Ray, Assistant Chief Scott Williams, Blue Card Program Director Josh Blum, and John Vance.
We break down why today’s mega warehouses and cold storage facilities create fireground problems that residential tactics cannot solve, especially when fires start on the roof or exterior and burn inward. We share field-proven steps that keep firefighters alive by supporting sprinkler systems, slowing the pace, and managing the incident like a strategic operation instead of a quick interior push.
• why “big box” and “mega warehouse” are different hazards
• how roof and exterior fires drive bad sprinkler narratives
• the Ohio case study where training and patience prevent firefighter losses
• building the “big four” before entry: FDC supply, attack team, roof report, on-deck crew
• why sprinkler-controlled fires are not compatible with routine ventilation
• reading the riser plate, fire pump, and alarm panel to measure fire growth
• requesting sprinkler and alarm contractors plus the water utility early
• what NFPA 13E and NFPA 1700 change in SOPs, preplans, and training
• why codes, owners, and access decisions shape outcomes long before dispatch
Links shared / talked about by Shane Ray:
NFPA Warehouse Fires Report: https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/warehouse-structure-fires
NFPA Challenges In Storage facilities: https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/fire-protection-research-foundation/projects-and-reports/identifying-challenges-to-fire-service-response-in-storage-facilities
Indiana Fire In Large Distribution Center: https://www.firehero.org/2026/01/14/plainfield-fire-territory-warehouse-fire/
The Blue Card Big Box Bulletin: https://conta.cc/3QpvT8u
Order the 3rd Edition of Fire Command here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com/products/new-fire-command-3rd-edition
For Waldorf University Blue Card credit and discounts: https://www.waldorf.edu/blue-card/
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Welcome And Key Resources
SPEAKER_03Hello and welcome to the E Gifter Podcast. John Vance here. I'm going to be joined by Jane Ray, the president of the National Fire Sprinkler Association and former fire chief, former state training director. He's been in the fire service for 30 plus years and continues to preach to us about sprinkler controlled fires, fire protection systems. And today's title of the of the podcast is going to be Big Box to Mega, because we have talked about big box so much, but we're seeing really mega-sized fires now in some of these very large facilities. So we'll talk about that. We're going to reference a few things. There is a big box bulletin that we put out at V Shifter. That's going to be in the show notes. So if you're looking for some training, some free training resources that will currently be offered by the National Fire Sprinkler Association and some other entities, go to those show notes. We have our SOPs in there for big box fires, which you could also start to train on mega fires with those. Also, some reports from the NFPA on successes in the history of warehouse fires. That's going to be in the show notes, as well as the report to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation on the Plainfield Indiana fire. So check all of those out. Great training resources. I'm glad you're here to hear this today. The other announcement I want to make is we are getting ready to ship our Fire Command 3 books. They were just a little bit delayed. If you order ahead of time, you're going to get a little treat from us because of your patience. So if you uh go to the B shifter store, order that, you're going to get a free timeless tactical truths only until we get them in the building. Once we get them in the building and they're not back to order, no more books. So if you order today, and what's today's date? We're looking at June 25th. If you order today, this is what you're going to get. If it's after July 1st, you won't get this. So a little treat for those who are patiently waiting their fire command third edition. I thought I'd let you know about that in case you wanted to take advantage of that little deal. Now let's go to our panel and talk about big box to mega on the B Shifter Podcast.
Why Mega Buildings Change Everything
SPEAKER_03Well, good day, gentlemen. Thanks for being on the B Shifter Podcast. It's always good to see Shane, Scott, and of course Josh. Shane is actually home in his office, it looks like, at home base. So I I know you're getting more frequent flyer miles than than anybody else I know, but I'm sure you're glad to be there and getting some things done. We wanted to get together and talk about some of the recent fires that we've seen in what we would call either big box or mega-sized buildings. And uh we'll throw it over to Shane first to tell us what you know. You know, we've seen two of them in California now. You know, the the the the Kimberly Clark fire, where it was actually set by it by an arsonist, and and some of the others that that were you know up in the uh attic space and and on the roof and spread that way. So, what do we know about some of the recent fires that we've seen that have made national news?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, thank you, Chief Vance and Chief Bloom. Thank you, B Shifter, for the spotlight here to say, hey, let's talk about this because we need to be talking about it internally. We put out a press release with uh we waited till when the second fire was going, there was a lot of negative press about the sprinkler systems and failure and all those things. But fire sprinkler systems are designed for buildings on the inside. Can we protect them from the outside? Absolutely. Do people choose to do that? No, they do not. So all the sprinklers that are sitting around me in here are made for fires that start on the interior of the building. So the misinformation that gets out there really quick, it's expected from the media and it's expected from the public. But what we're all here trying to do right now is we don't expect it or want it from the fire department, right? And that's the thing. And we know it's hard to get in front of it. The fire departments are busy, and certainly we have no criticism here, but uh we gotta get more of the information out, right? And we have the big box program with B-Shifter. Our guys just finished up with uh Ron Ritchie, our field service coordinator from Indiana. Chief Jeff Dixon and Lieutenant Matt King are doing those frontline leadership classes that talk about specifically the plane field fire and the report the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation did on that fire to get the word out. So there's more information going out. We're working with the North American Fire Training Directors, the Illinois Fire Service Institute, the University of Maryland Miffries, or not the universities, but the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute's program. They've helped us to try to get the word out, and we're going to keep that up. Talking about NFP 813E, right? So if if everybody listening in will just get NFP 813E and NFPA 1700, that's a key to start with the policies that you have. If your policies don't reference those two documents, then you're behind already. And as I've said for the several years we've been doing this big box class, that we have a fire a week in these facilities. Well, when you go back and look at it and you try to use AI now, then you know there's probably multiple fires in these facilities every day. The problem is you don't hear about them because guess what? We get them. Sprinklers do get them. There's a lot more saves than there are losses. But the news captures and when it burns a week, you're gonna deal with environmental. That keeps it on the news channels for an extra few days. And then you get these recent cold storage, a cold storage building. You're not stopping that when you've got the whole roof covered in solar panels. I talked with Dr. Dan Madrukowski while we were at NFPA the other day. He was talking to some of the folks out there on the scene about the building itself and what's in the walls. It's just not possible when you get that much fire going into that building. When you got a rubber membrane roof, polystyrene foam inside all the walls. And as you see, that now it's like you got Williams uh fire and hazard control out there, that you called in industrial folks. You got USA fire pumps with Chris Ferrer and his son. Those are the places, as we say in big box, and I end that piece with salvage and overhaul. We use the NFPA report on these large fires, which everybody ought to go get. You got to go get the NFPA warehouse and storage report. You got to get the NFPA foundation report on these extremely large buildings and the study that they did on that. You got to have 13E, you got to have 1700. Uh, but the salvage and overhaul is probably not gonna be done by the fire departments anymore on these facilities. If you go and look at anything in these last two fires, just a massive volume of fire, but in these cold storage, you can't get in the building. It's not occupiable for us to try to operate in that thing, right? And we show that in big box. I got lots of examples in that. Is here's some of those now, the structure. Our interns that are here at headquarters in Maryland are going on a tour next week, I think, on Tuesday, to go look at a cold storage warehouse being built within 50 miles of here. So all those things, but here's the thing I want to share with that while we're on it. The fire in the cold storage, guess what? We had the same fire, and I believe the same company in 2024 in Washington. We talk about that in big box, right? But the fire department has to interact with those systems, especially when it starts on the inside of the building, not on the outside of the building. So we'll be able to at some point talk about these fires and compare the two. You had the fire in Tracy, California. Again, another roof fire, right? We believe for everything we know and everything we can watch right now that says, hey, that fire started on the roof as well. How'd it get inside? One clip from an employee inside says, look, here's a fire. But how many more fires were in there that burn through the skylights or burn through the roof? So we had that same fire. Some of our members, uh, and again, the National Fire Sprinkler Association, we represent the entire fire protection community, can be a members, but we represent the manufacturers, the suppliers, and the installers, the contractors that do this. I had a contractor reach out to me and said, We had that fire in Mesa, Arizona in 2015. It burned through the membrane roof into the building, but the sprinklers caught it. But that was a data center building. So much different contents on the interior of the building. So those are the places that we just have to keep up the good work out here to get the word out. And then the thing is, Josh, we should have done is it says I found where Jefferson Township, Ohio had a fire on the roof and an Amazon facility there. We didn't see that, Chief Williams. Did you see that suburb area of Columbus, right? That was April of this year, eight two months ago. Right? So you can uh while I was looking and preparing for this, I'm like, hey, we had a fire here. I didn't even know about it. So uh, you know, not that I should, but between Chief Goldfutter, he's my number one informant and you guys that are always sharing with me, right? So we love learning about it. There's lots to learn. I just want to get up the you know, the and we can talk about the NFPA warehouse report. I want to talk about that. A number of fires that you look at it from 1980 has been going down, but you look at it from 2012 till now, it's going up. And as our former U.S. fire administrator said, we have a fire problem in America. We say that because of the number of people dying in residential fires is going up. Well, when we have community insult, thousands of people lose their jobs, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in economic loss. Guess what, folks? That's a fire problem, too. So, again, as you can tell, I could go on and on and on. But I want to talk about some of those things. And Chief Williams is here with us today, and thank you all for having him because I wanted him to talk about the successes. The man can stand before a crowd and say, because of the programs that's being done by B Shifter, Big Box, NFSA, and all the others out there trying to get a hold of this. He's first hand witness of saving firefighter lives. So there's lots to talk about.
Roof Fires And Sprinkler Misinformation
SPEAKER_03Let's start with Chief Williams and talking about, and we we reviewed already the chicken processing facility fire on a on a previous podcast. If you haven't listened to that one, we'll link it in the show notes. The other thing, Shane, that we'll put in the show notes is the big box bulletin and invitations to some of those leader frontline leadership sessions that you're doing, the one in Ohio and the one in Michigan. So folks can get information on that, as well as our big box SOP and information about the big box class. So that that'll all be in the show notes. But let's talk to the Chief Williams about some of his successes. Go ahead, Shane.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And as we lead into Chief Williams, Belleville, New Jersey. So Chief Williams is going to talk to you about what I believe is the same thing. If you've seen the fire in Belleville, New Jersey area up there, the mattress warehouse fire. I believe we're going to find that that's very similar to what Chief Williams had in his fire in Ohio, with the fact that the sprinkler was likely very inadequate when you look at the age of the building and then you look at the fires today, right? That says the building in New Jersey was way older than Chief Williams's building. But when you have a very old building, those sprinklers were not made for the modern day hazard. And when you don't upgrade that, then you got problems. And so when you recognize those problems, you can make a difference. Now, thank goodness in New Jersey, nobody did get hurt or killed. So they did a good job with recognizing as well. So kudos to them. But I think it's a good uh preload to Chief Williams and his fire in Ohio. So, Chief, thanks for sharing with us.
A Real Save From Ohio
SPEAKER_00So we've had several fires through our region since we did the big box training. If it wasn't for what I learned in our departments in the region from Shane and the blue card and the big box workshops, I believe we would have lost firefighters and we wouldn't have been as successful as we have been. We've had fires in grocery stores and middle of a strip mall. We've had a goodwill fire, we've had several tilt slabs that catch fire, big box fires in our region, whether it's in Hamilton County, Butler County, in our district, or the ones we respond mutual aid in. And back before Thanksgiving of last year, we had pulled up on a 50,000 square foot building, and we just had dark smoke coming out of everywhere of the building. And so we knew right away that the sprinkler was not holding this thing in check. So we had to stop and slow down and end up making sure the crews were out of the building, supported the fire department connections, started building out the big box procedures. And what we found afterwards was that this building had been originally built for armored vehicles. And what it what they were using it for today when the fire occurred was carpeting that they used for vehicles. So it had just rolls of carpeting in there, and the sprinkler system just wasn't able to keep up with what was going on inside that building. So when that fire took off, you could just tell from the outside something wasn't right, the sprinkler wasn't working. We didn't have those cold smoke conditions, that white grayish smoke. It was a dark gray-brown smoke. So we knew that things were not working well. But we did stop and we made sure we followed the procedures on that, as well as the chicken plant fire that we did the previous podcast on. And we have been super successful in keeping these fires contained and not losing the entire building, and most importantly of all, not losing any firefighters.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I would jump in and add to that that that's the whole premise for our program long before this fire occurred was fire sprinklers and firefighters, partners in protection. Because while the sprinklers were not, they were doing all they could do for that fire. It would be like, hey, I got a booster line and I need a two and a half. Right? But when they pump the connection, it's like, hey, I took that booster to at least an inch and three-quarter, right? So it's like I did get water on that, and then they got water from the doors. Stay at the entry doors. Don't open up all the big gigantic doors, just get water in from those entry doors. Do all you can do. An NFP 813E and 1700 will help you if you identify those target hazards. We use the one from Addison City, Tennessee that says, hey, this is one of target hazard that says, if you can't see, don't go. Right? Put all your guns in from the support the sprinkler system. How long did you pump that sprinker system, Chief William?
SPEAKER_00That one on the uh carpeting was like a nine-hour deal. We just kept pumping the system, and then the one at the chicken plant fire was over 12 hours pumping that system.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's where I like to say this little thing, which we have gigantic ones, this is getting water from the ceiling down as far into that fire plume as it can get it. It can't get water from the side, it can't get water underneath anything, as we say in big box, right? So it takes both. And without both, if they would have shut the system down, the building would have burned down, right? If they hadn't put their hoses in there, the building would have burned down, right? But they did it from a safe area. Chief Williams shows his thermal imaging camera with his size up. It's like, all right, the sprinkles are flowing the heck out of water because you can see water running out some of the big roll-up doors. But sprinklers, as we say in the thing, are not made to work with ventilation, right? And that's where you reading stuff on these fires and watching as it comes in. It's like, well, firefighters couldn't get on the roof because of panels. Well, thank God, because sprinkles are not made. And if you look at the fire in Washington State, I think you're we'll find out when that's all said and done. It said, hey, leave the systems running and don't make any holes. The building is designed as it's contained, and so that's where Chief Williams' success was. It's like, stay out, get out, let's back up, pump the system, pull up, hook up, pump up. That's our messaging, right? And then again, be patient, right? My whole premise: be prepared. Prepared too is before the fire. You can't arrive at the fire and be like, all right, now what? This is not going like normal. It's not normal, right? Half of my slide deck says, Is this your first fire? It probably is. Not many people have been to a million square footer. Not many people have been to a 50,000 square footer with K8 sprinklers when it needed a K25. Right? It's like those are probably that. And so that's where again, be prepared, be patient, get your time to set up. Take the time. You've got to let the sprinkers work. Our little pins and stuff around here, fire sprinkers buy time, time buys life. It buys time for you to set up. There's a lot of operations. When you look at these fires, look at the vast amount of resources to just try to get water on the roof, right? And tilt slap wall buildups, and even in these, it's like where the building's not necessarily coming down from the sides because it's all tied together all the way across the building. Still, it is operating is a challenge and takes a lot of resources. That's why that you have time. And then ventilation, they're not designed for ventilation. And salvaging overhaul is probably not going to be us as a fire department, right? We say that every class. When you got 60 foot of rack storage in there that you can't even get in there with, you're not manually suppressing that from the inside of that building.
SPEAKER_03So we were recently out in Phoenix doing a train the trainer, and on Wednesday, we it's big box day. We we introduce the students to division operations and big box operations where we start talking about slowing down, pumping up all of the stuff that you talk about, Shane. And there was Chief, a training chief, newly minted training chief in the back row. And as I'm talking, he's getting visibly agitated. Like he's squirming in a seat, he's turning red. Finally, I'd ask him, you know, I th I thought I thought he was completely disagreeing with what we were saying. And I go, you know, let's talk about this. It looks like you have some issues here with what we're talking about. He goes, Yeah, I do. I feel like I've been lied to for the last 20 years, like all of this was information to him. He had never heard before that you couldn't ventilate above a fire that is being sprinkler controlled. It was in their SOP at his former department to do it. He had never heard about slowing down and building an attack team and pumping uh the FDC before we do anything else. They didn't have an SOP for that. So when I see it through the eyes of folks that haven't heard about this, because it is their first fire, it is a rare occurrence. I had breakfast this morning with somebody who's been in the fire service 34 years, never been to a big box fire before. So that's why we're talking about this so much, and that's why I think this conversation is so important because really nobody else is having it, and it's just inevitable that if you're not going to have one of these in your community, you're going to respond to one as an auto-aid or mutual aid partner. So let's back up to being patient. Oh, go ahead, Sheik.
SPEAKER_02Well, and two, I want to say that a great observation, Chief Vance, and thanks for bringing it up. It's not their fault. Nobody has known this, right? It's like the information hasn't gotten out. Now, has it existed? Yes, in NFPA 13E. But who knew about that? You know how we do it. It's like, how many people ever heard of 13E? Raise your hand. And not many people do, right? Their policies wasn't built on it. We we all say our training is built around what? 2,000 square foot single-family detached dwelling and a strip mall, right? High rise, we've done better with high rise, but yeah, it's not their fault that's like, but hey, seek it, get it, and change your policies as a result of it.
Slow Down And Build The Big Four
SPEAKER_03So let's talk about being patient because I think that's where a lot of this starts. Well, it starts with the training and and pre planning and and having a good SOP and and and implementing it. But when we get there, being patient, Chief Williams, how much of a challenge is that? And and what have you done as a leader to slow things down, to get things in place? That Shane is telling us to get in place. Talk about that process.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, even with the procedures in place and stuff, sometimes we respond to fires and firefighters want to get the problem solved, right? So sometimes they're in the building. We've got to stop and we've got to pull them out of the building and we've got to build out the big box procedures. It's hard. We're fixers, right? So we pull up on these fires and we got smoke coming out. They want to get in there and get to work, right? But the best thing that we can do for their safety, for the building, and to put this fire out is to slow down and follow the big box procedures. Build out the big four that we call it and make sure that we're doing that, right? Building that attack team, two companies minimum, making sure we're hooking up to the fire department connection. We're getting a roof report, and then we're having an on-deck crew. And not only assigning that stuff out, but before we make entry, we got to make sure that we get that roof report and that the fire department connection is being supplied. So making sure we slow down is so important, but it's so difficult to do because we're fixers. And we have to understand that these fires are not the kitchen fire and a residential fire that we're going to be done in 45 minutes. These are going to be hour-long deals, if not days, at these fires.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and those are the things too that when you're doing that, there's lots to do. And remember, we've even changed since as a result of the plane field fire. We've changed that said, hey, engine goes to the fire, engine goes to the pump house where the fire pump is, and those big facilities that have gigantic fire pumps in them as well, right? Those facilities, two 2,500 gallon a minute pumps. Nobody in class, hardly outside of a couple of major metro cities, are hauling that anyway. So it's like, hey, we gotta get engine to the fire, engine to the pump, engine to the riser, where the riser is. You got to compare what's going on in the pump house with what's going on at the riser that's pumping this, that's supplying this fire, right? And then we'll send one to the alarm panel. So you got four companies that we say now assigned to this facility to say, hey, look, that's the only way we can adequately get eyes on what's going on in there. And so we're learning and adding and building on as we go, as we learn more. That's why we so appreciate these departments that are sharing with us. I have a call, the Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Kudos out to the fire from Ontario and the folks out there for reaching out saying, hey, we'd like some assistance here. What can we do better? How can we do that? The playing field has made a difference. So we're looking forward to doing those, all those things to try to help and learn and change our policies, change our procedures. Kudos to Chief Stewart from the B Shifter for he sits on 1700, Dan Madrikowski, uh, all of our gang, Taryn Hopkins from here, the folks that are making a difference because we've seen this edition 2026, 13E, and 1700 updated. All that because of all the programs that are being done out there trying to tackle this problem.
SPEAKER_03So the things you talked about, Shane, is really outside of what our normal work is. I think we're really good at stretching that cross lay and going into that kitchen fire, but we're talking about much different functions on the fire ground when we're pumping an FDC and going to the riser room and going to the alert panel. How do we get our folks comfortable with those tasks so they know what they're doing? Because I think a lot of times things fall apart because they there's discomfort and or just not knowing because they're just not used to to doing those tasks. So what what what's really the best way to get our folks oriented to to learn to deal with this?
SPEAKER_02Well, and part of the being prepared is to be out there when these buildings are under construction. You know, we say in all the big box classes, it's like the fire marshal and the operations side and the training side all got to get together here and say, let's go out there and learn what's going on in that building. We need to know as it's going up. When the pump acceptance test is being done, go out there, take your operational companies, do that, share that, make a training piece. Make sure if you're building training academies, that you reach out and say, hey, we don't want to build a $40 million training facility that has no fire protection equipment in it for us to function and operate with, right? Those are the best ways to be prepared. Be in the community and make sure that your training is referencing the documents that are out there, that you're participating in the programs, that you're sharing it with all your other companies. We share the pieces we could share, the big box operating policy, it's like use those products, they're there for you, and and they don't cost you anything.
SPEAKER_03I think back to my basic firefighter training, and we spend like a whole day wedging sprinkler heads and trying to clamp them off. That's something we shouldn't even be doing to begin with, right?
SPEAKER_02No, we want you to control the valve. That's why we put floor control valves, right? We do the program at FDIC. If you had you guys have been to that with us, uh we've improved that this year. You can actually flow water. So you pull up, hook up, pump up, put the fire out that's in the hotel simulated area from burning in our trailer. And then we're flowing the K-25s and maxing out your pumper and a 1500 gallon a minute facility pump. That's all done at FDIC and hot now that says here, let us show you how that's done. That's not, it's like, hey, that K-25 sprinkler's flowing 250 gallons of water a minute. Let's go get on a stepladder and wedge that. Not that's a fatality, right? And so that's where we got to make those changes.
SPEAKER_03You bring up something really interesting when we we talk about the success stories, because there's way more success than there are these failures. But that should trigger something to the IC, whether it's the first arriving company officer or the chief coming in to transfer command. If you're getting to these facilities and you're not seeing the signs of fire control, you know, the smoke's slowing down, the the color of the smoke, the velocity of the smoke, it's getting worse, or even visible flame, that should be a warning sign there, right? And something isn't working. Does it ever get better with fire department actions at these large fire protected buildings?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, with the fires on the inside of the building, that's why it's so important that you're not going to tell by the most of the time in these mega warehouses by the smoke, right? You're probably the first engines going to get there while they have visibility. As the visibility continues to change because of the smoke, if you can't see through the smoke, it's still burning. That's from all the research that we've done and burning in actual structures. You all were with us when we burned in a dynamic Minnesota, right? And we learned we let that fire burn for 28 minutes. And so while we think it's cold smoke and we can't see through it, it's burning at 15, 1700 degrees. And we just had a seven-foot normal retail center configuration of product, not 40 feet, not 60 feet, not 80 feet of burning products. Guess what? That's going to continue to burn. As Chief Williams said, this is hours and hours and hours. And we say don't shut the system down until you can see to walk around, right? Pull up, hook up, pump up. Don't shut it off till you can see to walk around. Right. And so those are the messages that we got to get out there with these fires because it's much, much different than anything. With but here's the only way you can tell. That's why you got to have somebody at the riser looking at that plate saying, What is the pressure required here? It tells you right on there, residual at the base. That's got to compare to the person at the pump house looking at the pump. If you pull up, hook up, pump up at 150. But it's like if the fire pump's running at 165 and you need 125 at the riser, you're golden. It's working. Support it, be prepared. Watch it. When that 165 goes to 150, guess what? It's operating more sprinklers, but it's designed for that. It also tells you on that plate how many sprinklers should be as the max to activate: 10, 12, 14, 15, 20. Whatever that number is is written there. It was designed for that, but you've got to have eyes on that. That's to what we learned from Planefield. The fire alarm control panel. It's like, oh, riser 47 is now going off. I'm standing at riser 30. Where's riser 47? I don't know, but we got to go find it. And if you know that's going off and you find it and you can see it, and then the fire alarm control panel, if they got a diagram, it's gonna show you. Well, that's the ESFRs, the early suppression fast response sprinkers at the ceiling. All right, we know the fires all the way to the roof deck, and that's where, too, if you can't see that, and how can you see that in a 40-foot, 60-foot, 80-foot building, right? When you've got commodities burning in the building, it's just a much different day, gentlemen.
Read The Riser Pump And Panel
SPEAKER_03And the Indiana fire you're referencing, it was identified in the National Fall and Firefighters Foundation report that had that had somebody been watching that uh panel, and and this wasn't really talked about until this report, but had somebody been watching that panel, they would have seen that fire was growing. It wasn't under control, it was growing, right? From the from the activations.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And thanks to them being proactive and sharing, we all learned that, right? And so that's why we got to get the word out. And those guys, again, kudos to Chief Anderson and the Plainfield Fire Protection Authority out there, uh, the town of Plainfield, the fallen firefighters, everybody that just shared their stories, and they're still sharing it, right? They we got one coming up in frontline leadership class with Ron Richie, uh Jeff Dixon, and Lieutenant Matt King in Michigan. So in Brighton, Michigan, we'll be up there in July, and we'll be down in Ohio as well. So free training. Yesterday when they were friends in the class in Kansas, it was like amazing, outstanding class. Gotta get more.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, so I think some of the takeaways from those reports and these fires are that typically we don't call somebody from the alarm company, right? So we need to give it the RP. We need to make sure that somebody from the alarm company is showing up, somebody from the sprinkler system is showing up. We need those representatives on the scene. We also need to work with our local water department because this is gonna require a ton of water, and they're gonna need to work with us to make sure we have enough water to put this out for again hours, right? Or possibly days. So it's just a whole different approach that you have to take, and you're gonna have to call for some additional resources that you're not used to calling for right off the bat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, great point, Chief Williams. It is get the fire alarm contractor for the building, ask the facility manager, get the fire alarm contractor and the fire sprinkler contractor on the way right then. And then the water we know from some of these fires, it's like, oh, we lot we know water pressure. Well, was it municipal system or was it on the yard hydrants? Because the pump, was it tied to the pump? Some of these we believe it was not tied to the yard system, that it was a municipal. Well, if there's no tank and pumps, where's that going? There is a pump. What's it feeding by? And then if you're taking municipal and the pump's taking municipal, what's that outcome gonna be? Not good, right? So that's where reach out for help. I I would jump in too now with the warehouse. So I'd encourage folks to go look at the warehouse, look at NFPA foundation's work on this, look at the NFPA warehouse uh structure fires. They just updated this report in February of 2026. So again, since 1980, and here's a history piece for you. So since 1980, we as the National Fire Sprinkler Association have been tracking the number of sprinklers shipped in the United States by our manufacturers. In 1980, there were more than four, but now there's four manufacturers of the actual fire sprinkler device in the United States. But in 1980, there was NFPA's report that says there were 4,700 fires a year. 4,700 fires a year in warehouses, and that was reduced by 73% up until 2013. However, the direct property damage, and two, I'm putting this just warning you for the B shift big box. I'm putting this slide back in because we started with it. Remember the slide that shows the spike that says, oh, you went from two 300 million to 800 million, and now we get one that spikes over a billion. It's like, and I say, you don't want to command a fight, you didn't know the incident commander woke up today and said, I think I'd like to have a billion dollar loss that burns for a week. No, nobody wants that. We want to prevent that. But here's the thing: I want to correlate those two. That it got down in 2009 as low as 1,138. So we went from 4,700 to 1100 in 2009. So now what's happening since 2009? Let's think through this piece. And this is where we need to have a whole nother conversation about engaging the owners, the insurance, the politicians, the regulators. Because those decisions are not your fault as a fire officer. They are not your fault. Should we try to make changes and everything? Yeah, that's why we need you involved in codes and standards. But we're back up to another high. So when you look from 2013 till today, we've gone from 1100 to nearly 1700. And guess what? With NERS, we're going to know this a lot sooner than we ever have. That said, hey, I believe from all the research you can do that says, well, we think there's 165 today. It's like, no, there's way more than that. There's 165 that made the news, right? There's a plastics facility in Tennessee. The same day all this is burning, there's a fire in Pennsylvania. I know the one in Tennessee was not sprinklered. We believe the one in Pennsylvania was not sprinklered. So those warehouse fires that are not sprinklered, they're going to keep going. But why did the number go down so high? Well, listen, our statistics at the National Fire Sprinkler Association, since 1980, there has been a 70% increase in the number of occupancies required to be sprinklered. And so as I sit here and look at us old faces, guess what? We started careers, as I say in the class, the gigantic church, the grocery store, and the school. Only buildings in the town sprinkler, right? Now 75% of the whole town sprinkler, right? Including our homes. So from homes to high-rises, we've changed that since 1980. In 1980, you can build a high-rise building without fire sprinkers. You can't do that today. You can't build, you could not build in 1980, though, an unlimited size building. And so it's like now you can. Why? The fire protection features in it. So while there's been a 70% increase in the number of occupancies, there's been a 400% increase in the number of sprinkers shipped. So do you think everybody that we're talking to out there is going to start going to more fires in sprinklered buildings? Yes. The number one sprinkler save in America is in apartment complexes. So that's where we put in the program and I show the kitchen fire. This is not what's happening in this million square footer. And I'm not belittling anybody, but our tactics and things we're not trained with sets and reps to say this is different. Much different, right? And so, but over this whole period of time, though, there's two deaths and 17 injuries. Now we know since then there's been one more death because Chief Williams had one. So that death there will add to this number, but that's where we're slow with that. But I can encourage you enough to go to go look at these reports, get in a PA13E, get in a PA 1700, change your policies. And we're all glad to help look at those and provide some guidance. So uh whatever we can do to help out there, we will.
What The Data Says About Warehouses
SPEAKER_01I think it's important that we understand, and when we look at something, we can't just say big box anymore. And we just can't say, well, the building burnt down, or we can't be vague like that, right? Because I think there's there's hundreds, if not thousands, of factors that play into it. So the the the the death of of the person and incident here in in southern Ohio that chief where Chief Williams was at the the chicken plant incident, you know, that wasn't a a fire that started from a light bulb or that even somebody set there was some sort of flash explosion, right? So again, it goes back to the system, isn't designed for that. And kudos to the fire department for recognizing that super early on. And and I just want to bring up that you know, when you when you train your people to the system and everybody's on the same page, as I was listening to the audio several times afterwards, and you hear company officers communicating, we need to make sure we have all of our big box parts and pieces in place before we make entry, you know you're getting somewhere, right? This isn't just the the chief is getting there or whoever and saying this is what we're how we're gonna set it up. It has to be everybody, right? So if you're gonna operate within a system and have a plan, then everybody has to understand the system and the plan and be trained in all of those parts and pieces. And that's been a huge part of the success, I think, all around this region is everybody adopting the same SOPs, SOGs, and trying to operate more like one fire department and doing the training, right? Which is probably the most important part of that is the we're gonna go pre-plan, we're gonna go look at all these things, we're gonna understand the fire suppression system before we have to deal with it at two o'clock in the morning when the building's on fire and somebody's asking me when I'm standing in the riser room, what do you got? And the person has no idea because it's the first time they've ever, you know, looked at a at a plate in a in a in a riser room or or in a pumphouse room. So that that death, I mean, though it is the person, yeah. I mean, it was a big box building, it was there was an explosion that occurred, right? So it's kind of like a natural gas explosion, 13 people dead. That that data looks different than one person died because of a kitchen fire that you know they were overcome by smoke, right? So that so that so that data does matter. So it I just want to put that out there because to think in any way, shape, or form that they were gonna go in and pull that person out was I mean, it it just wasn't gonna happen. I mean, they chief, I think they were the person was like 400 and some feet from the door, right? So yeah, like it it's just not a not something that's gonna happen. But there were some, I think, some decisions made by that person that they were they were an employee and they were gonna go try to solve a problem. So you get out, but then it's like, no, I'm gonna go try to fix this. So that's also some different data, right? But you know, people love to just run with, like you you said, Shane, about the whatever the news topic is, they love to run with that and start putting it out there. This this the system failed, old person died in there. Now we need to do wide area searches around you know, ovens and baking machines in this big box building. And it's like it is not the 2,000 square foot house that we all most organizations train on, and that most training in the in our country is based on every single day, right? So all the stuff we see is really about residential buildings.
SPEAKER_02So and you bring up a good point there that we ought to discuss is the fact that it a big box is not a mega warehouse, right? The big box we talk about is a you know essentially a retail mercantile store, right? And I show the slide that there's the building code recognizes and the fire code recognizes 26 different occupancies. Well, a megawarehouse that's a cold storage is much different than a megawarehouse that's a data center, right? We've done such a good job with the data centers, and we'll do a better job with this, just like I've learned since this, being it with our members that says, hey, we have things that go under those solar panels that'll help protect that. So we have companies that said, if you want us to sprinkle under that, we can. Right? So we can try to keep it between the panel and the roof. But also, I learned that said they said 20 years ago, the place where all the switching for that goes on used to not be on the roof. It was down in the building in a secure vault. Well, it's like when you remove that and put it on the roof, it's like, all right, now maybe that's why we understand there was a fire there. So there's lots of things for us to learn.
Codes Politics And Owner Engagement
SPEAKER_02And I would, yeah, even a, you know, like I said, a cold storage versus 80 feet with automated retrieval system. But as I was talking last week when some of these were going on with Dr. Steve Kerber with UL Fire Safety Research Institute, our push needs to get the owners of the buildings, the occupants of the building that are leasing the space, the retrieval system folks, the robotic people that's operating, the machines in there, and the insurers together to say, hey, we got to come together to try to solve these problems. But my biggest soapbox is going to be from this point on, outside the operational and tactical side, getting over to the codes and standards. These politicians have to stop knowing better than the consensus code. Because the peace since 1980, from 1980 till the 2000s, the number of fires went drastically down. That was during my career as an actual fire chief. And as a fire chief, I had access to the politicians that were making decisions. They respected me, they valued my opinion, and they listened to what we had to say. We had always adopted the latest code. We required fire sprinklers. We wanted to know what was going on with these buildings. We did not have to sign NDAs and say you can't see that. Here's the drawing for the sprinkers. You can only look at them for 30 minutes. No, it's a different world. You got to leave us alone, right? And Ohio, you're going through that now. Chief Reardon's fighting as your state fire marshal. You got a local community where the fire chief is saying, hey, you're putting in these data centers and we don't know nothing about them. You won't let us in them. We can't see them. While I argue that says that's the NFPA ecosystem, right? I don't want to go head to head. I don't want to say, see this brass. We want to be involved. That said, we all have a responsibility for fire protection in this community. And look what happens when something fails. And it's not the sprinklers the majority of the time that fails. It's the other thousand components that go into that building that give us no chance in fire protection, whether it's the fire sprinklers, the fire alarm, the passive fire protection features, and danger of the fire department. So as you can tell, as I say, I can get wound up like an eight-day clock on that.
SPEAKER_03I'm glad I'm not dealing with uh any data centers, but in my old jurisdiction, they're installing one right now and they're going through the same problems and a lot of broken promises. And it's a it's a large major corporation that is trying to bulldoze their way in figuratively and literally into the community. And I I know they're working really hard to try to figure out what's going on in there. And I it's akin to me to the we used to have a Bell facility down the street from the firehouse, and we just didn't go in because it was it was batteries in there, like lots of batteries and a and a carbon dioxide system that was gonna displace the oxygen to put that fire out. So we just didn't go in. We knew it, we knew it ahead of time. I don't know if I'd go a data center, what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_02I mean, it what and we learned we learned that too. We had the bail switching station in Brentwood where I was a fire officer, right? And you just didn't go in. We learned that from the New York City fire, right? It was way before our career, but we said, hey, we learned that, don't do that, yeah, right? And so, you know, but what are we gonna do now? It's like we got to be involved, we got to be involved in that process, use the NFA ecosystem. Are we gonna stop it? No, but we got to engage. It says, hey, we want to learn about it as it goes through. We understand there's a lot of proprietary stuff that they don't want people learning about or knowing about. We don't want to know about that. We just want to know about the fire protection features, the access to it, and what we're gonna do when it does have an event, right? That's when you're gonna expect us to interact. That's the components we want to know.
SPEAKER_03You you brought up the data center. So I want to ask this are they putting in what we would call unusual or or you know, like a carbon dioxide system or anything else that's that's different, or are they just using water and ESFR heads? What is going into those buildings?
SPEAKER_02Yep, it's mostly water. We have some special hazards, things that we do now with high pressure mist and things, depending on what the situation is. So there's lots of opportunities out there, but we've done a lot better, and we use this in the big box now. I show a few of those that says, hey, back in the day when data centers were new, and you tried to build all this stuff out of plastic, that was bad, right? But they've done a lot better. I'm gonna knock on a lot of wood right now that says, hey, we haven't seen one of those in a good while, right? Why? Because it's like if you just limit the combustibles in that, we the sprinklers have a lot better chance to operate, you isolate it. And then the next piece is is our our group is always the fire sprinkler industry is doing the best it can and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in research, and there's not enough research labs in the world to bring product to market as fast as we need to. But as I sit here and I showed you guys in one of the big boxes, we're trying to get a product that says, hey, here it is, that this is gonna operate instead of waiting for the fire to operate the sprinklers. We want to operate them in conjunction with what the design area is. Meaning that says, hey, we want to go ahead and break the link that's in that sprinkler to say, go ahead and open all 12. If it's rated for 12, open all 12. Let's pre-wet. That's how we're successful with residential, right? I believe we're it says in here that you know we're 80% successful in warehouses. I believe when the fire starts inside, we're at our 125-year record of 96% successful with sprinkers. I believe we're 99% successful in residential occupancies because why? It's fast, it's quick, and it wets everything else in that room, right? And we're over 80%, 96% of them are contained with fewer than four sprinklers. And so, even in any of these occupancies. So, with all that data we have, we know our success. It's just these systems where the whole system, and when I say system, I'm talking the built environment system. When those components fail, we're the last line of defense, and so it's not fair for us that says, hey, what are we going to do about this? Well, you got to interact, and that's where firefighters, fire sprinklers, partners in protection. We're here for the community.
SPEAKER_03Take a fire like the one in Los Angeles that happened last week and burned for a week. Is there anything when it's to that point, though, that the fire department can actually do? We see them doing airdrops and guys on the roof with hand lines, and you know, they were trying like hell to do something, but really, what is it that we can do if the system has failed at that point?
SPEAKER_02Well, and kudos to them, right? The building system of that failure was the burning into the roof, right? And burning into that thick polystyrene wall, right? The the sprinklers inside were probably not even operating, right? Because the fire never got into that piece. By the time it gets into that, that's where it's a challenge for everybody, and that's why it's burned for a week, right? But you take the fire with the arsonist, uh, and you know, it's hard to say because we don't want to spread the word, but fires on the inside of the building are made for one fire, right? Well, you can't have 20. It's not for that, but we have to be careful. We don't want to give that out to the rest of the world, you know. But we have to understand that too. If you pull up and the first dew gets there and it's blowing out, and the fire pump is running at 20 pounds because you've operated six sprinklers, it ain't got a chance. And now you're starting to figure out all right, I got to valve some of this to keep water somewhere else for other use. That's why you're gonna need help figuring that out from the sprinkler contractor, your fire marshal's office, the water purveyors. That's gonna take a team of people to go figure that out and say, all right, now what do we do?
Myth Busting FDC Pumping
SPEAKER_03If you could help bust a couple of myths here, because I get this, uh say 50% of the time, that either by policy or just by practice, we've been told not to pump the FDC because we're going to rob water from the system. I and I heard that again a couple of weeks ago. What do you say to that?
SPEAKER_02Pull up, hook up, pump up. That's why we put the thing on the building. You all heard me say it a thousand times. There's a reason we call it the fire department connection. And if you pull up and you hook up and you're pumping into a fire pump and the fire pump's running 165 and you're pumping 150, that's fine. You're there for when it goes down, it's not gonna hurt anything. And then those of it that have policies that says, we don't trust the fire pump, let's take it over. Bad policy. That pump, if you it's installed, it maintains, and those things, it's going to perform. If you don't maintain it, then that's your fault that you're not enforcing NFPA 25, right? Because those things, and you're not enforcing the test maintenance and inspection that most all states require, right? So you gotta do that. So pull up, hook up, pump up. You're not gonna hurt it, as I say. If you do hurt it, it was because you was not testing it and maintaining it.
SPEAKER_03The the other thing that you said is we don't shut the fire pump off, just let it run.
SPEAKER_02It's designed to run until it's death. The fire pump in that building is designed for a one fire, and its life is dedicated to that. So do not turn that pump off. And even if you're pumping into it, it ain't gonna hurt it. It runs it, it runs itself with its own water fine. And if you pump and take over, it's still doing what it does every week or every month, depending on what type of pump it is. It's still gonna be fine. You're not going to hurt it.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it's just important if we most of our training is centered around residential, right? And we don't in the fire academy train on these big box buildings, right? These commercial buildings. So get your people out there, get them trained, take the NFSA courses that are out there, get a get the big box workshop, get the training you need, uh, get out there and pre-plan your buildings, understand what you have, understand if they've got fire pumps, how much they what that GPM of that pump is, and then where are your fire department connections? And then how do mutual aid departments as well as your department know where they're at? Are they identified? Are they labeled? It's a lot of work that you got to do on the front end to be successful. You can't show up at two o'clock in the morning and try to figure all this out because you're gonna fail.
SPEAKER_03Shane, did you want to hit anything else that we didn't address today?
SPEAKER_02I'll just sum up this as I always do and be prepared. And that means what Chief Williams just said, the best way to be prepared is to be out there in your community, see it, watch it, be part of it, make sure your operations, training, and fire marshal group is in sync. Use the NFPA ecosystem and try to get with the owners, get with the sprinkler companies, get with the alarm companies. Most all of our members are willing and able to say, hey, let us show you. That's what they do every day. It is their specialty. So be prepared next. Be patient, right? Be patient. Fire sprinkers buy time, time buys life. Get all your stuff together. Sprinkler to the fire or uh engine to the fire, engine to the pump, engine to the riser, engine to the alarm panel, or whatever units you want to assign to it. But you gotta, as Chief Williams just said, you gotta train them. Take your time. Fire sprinkers buy time, time buys life. Ventilation, fire sprinkers, the that building is needed to be intact like it is. Exterior fires, whole different ball game, right? And so whatever you got to do to stop it from getting inside, where it burns through the skylights and gets into there, once those systems start operating, it ain't gonna take but a couple till the system's overwhelmed, right? If it's coming from the outside in, and then salvaging overhaul. It's like these companies are gonna have to start pre-getting their stuff that says, I got a contract for somebody that's gonna come in and go ahead, as we said, get a sprinkler contractor, get an alarm contractor on the way. And if it's on the roof or exterior of the building, I don't know that I wouldn't consider one of those industrial companies for response. It says, Hey, we're gonna need them quicker than not, especially, you know, none of us here have the resources that LA City, New York, all those big boys and girls have. So we're gonna need that sooner than later. So, but anyway, thanks for the thanks.
SPEAKER_03If LA City needs Williams, all of us here today would need Williams. I mean, uh if if there was ever a case for that ever, you know. Amen.
Tactical Truth And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_03All right, before we go, timeless tactical truth. Hey, timeless tactical truth from Alan Brunicini and this one from the book. It's very dangerous to apply a tactical solution to a strategic problem. Oh, the boss. We we we want to fix things, uh and I think that's where we get in trouble at at uh mega-sized buildings is we want to rush in and and use the residential tactics, stretch our inch and three-quarter line, and get to the seat of the fire and put it out. That's what we're trying to do. But it's a strategic problem. I mean, Chief Williams had to be strategic at the chicken plant fire in order for for everyone to go home safe. And they saved 75% of the building. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that goes back to training, right? We had a lieutenant riding up that day in that car, and he was able to, he had been trained to the system and knew what he needed to do. He pulled up, he was making those decisions 20 to 25 minutes before I and other chiefs arrived to support him at one o'clock in the morning. So train your people, make sure they understand what they need to do. These are a completely different animal, so make sure that they understand that and that they slow down and follow the big box entry requirements.
SPEAKER_01And it just can't be one and done. You have to stay connected to it. You can't they have the well, I went to managing major fires at the National Fire Academy in 1999. Well, great, you picked up a lot from that, but everybody has to stay connected and stay current on everything that's going on because our fire environment is changing faster than ever, and and having an understanding of what's really going on and looking at looking at the big picture from you know 30,000 feet all the way down to you know the that ability to see after the incident what happened and what's going on. And I just want to add one little piece that we've had several incidents where the insulation on the sidewalls and buildings catch on fire, and then it gets into that void space in the installation and it runs and it gets above the sprinkler heads, and then we wonder why while the fire was burning, we're wondering why we're not getting it. Well, it got above the sprinkler heads, and really it goes back to an incident we've been talking about for I don't know, 15 years or more in out of Illinois. It I think it was a rooms to go facility where the fire ran up like four racks of furniture, but it got above the sprinkler head system. They thought they had it and it they didn't have it because it was burning all across the the roof. They shut the sprinkler system off, and I think there was 30 or 40 mile-an-hour winds that day. There's pl plenty of video out there on that incident. And at the time when they when that when that fire happened, I think it was then was the largest fire loss ever in a in a facility like that. So it keeps evolving and changing. And what we learned from that incident, we should be applying today, but we have to continue to learn and understand all of the systems and all of the buildings and everything that's going on. And it's not going away. Just this morning I saw a place by us that we've had on the podcast before with the Amazon facilities. They're getting a, I think, a 1.5 million square foot cold storage facility right on 75 and another million square foot like box dry goods facility right next to it. And it's like so, I mean, they're they're just not going away. So we we need to understand the difference in capabilities. And big box isn't a house fire. And when we get called to grandma's house for chest pains, we don't just shock her. So we don't just take standard action because that's what we got called for. We uh evaluate the factors and then we put into place what works. And you know, obviously the strategies and tactics for a big box is much different than a house fire. So if you take nothing else away, you know, consider that slow down when you pull up, hook up, make sure you get an attack team in place, make sure you have on-deck crews to support them, make sure you get a roof report. I think now more important than ever of what is actually going on on the roof. Did this fire start on the roof and now it's inside, or did it come from the inside and now it's through the roof? Like what is going on, and then what's that stability? So I'm sure John, you're gonna include our blue card SOG on that and you know our workshops that we have scheduled for the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_03So it'll all be in the show notes. We'll we'll include all that as resources for the B Shifter listeners. We'd like to thank Jane Ray, also to Scott Williams, and Josh Well for being here today on the Beat Shifter Podcast. Make sure to check those show notes for all of the resources that we talked about today. Share this podcast with your friends, and don't forget to like and subscribe and talk to you next week on Beat Shifter.