The race to cash in on artificial intelligence has triggered a data center building boom that is quickly becoming the largest infrastructure effort of our time. With these enormous facilities being built all over the world, an army of safety professionals is now racing to understand the complex systems in data centers and mitigate their hazards, even as the technology inside continues to rapidly evolve.

Today on the podcast, we welcome Michael Brune, one of those safety experts on the frontlines of overseeing safety during the data center buildout. As the fire marshal of Goodyear, Arizona, a suburb of Pheonix, Brune and his office review designs and issue permits for data centers, and oversee construction and inspections. He's had a lot to do. The city now has at least 30 data centers in various stages of completion, most of which have gone up in just the last few years. Brune shares his experiences and lessons learned as an AHJ overseeing several enormous data center projects, and what it's like playing a high-stakes safety tug-of-war with some of the richest corporations on earth.

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Read the cover story of the NFPA Journal, "Fast, Furious, Immense."

Learn more about NFPA 75, Standard for Fire Protection of Information Technology Equipment

Volunteer firefighters are the backbone of the U.S. emergency response system, but since 2008, nearly 200,000 volunteers have left the fire service, a drop of almost 25 percent. To make things worse, calls to fire departments have increased about 70 percent since 2008, leaving the firefighters who remain to do much more with much less. Despite all of this, little research has been done to find the causes of this crisis and what to do about it. But that is starting to change.

Today on the podcast, I am joined by Joe Maruca, a board member of the National Volunteer Fire Council, and Ken Willette, the executive director of the North American Fire Training Directors. Both men recently worked with researchers on a massive new study looking at what effects training requirements have had on volunteer fire department recruitment and retention. During the interview, we discuss the many factors that have caused volunteers to leave the fire service, and how volunteer departments are adapting to their new reality. We also talk about what is being done to help chiefs and communities bring more volunteers into the fire service.

Links:

Read the new Fire Protection Research report, "Understanding the Role of Training on Volunteer Firefighter Recruitment & Retention," coming at the end of February.

Learn more about the National Volunteer Fire Council, and check out its new Make Me a Firefighter program, which matches volunteers with department needs.

Learn more about the North American Fire Training Directors

In the early hours of New Year's Day, a blaze erupted at Le Constellation, a popular bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, killing 40 young people and injuring more than 100 others. Authorities believe the fire started when embers from sparklers ignited foam soundproofing material on the ceiling. It is latest in a long line of eerily similar deadly fires in nightclubs involving pyrotechnics. Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes?

Today on the podcast, you will hear a powerful conversation with two survivors of The Station nightclub fire, one of the deadliest nightclub fires in U.S. history. They talk with two prominent fire safety and burn advocates about their emotional reaction to Le Constellation, and what it was like to live through and recover from a similar tragedy. Then, the group discusses why these lessons are so hard to learn, and what we can all collectively do to help stop these fires from happening. This conversation first aired on Girls with Grafts, a burn survivor's podcast published by the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors.

LINKS

Learn more about the NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem

Get involved with NFPA's 'Safety Doesn't Happen by Chance' campaign

Learn more about the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors

Listen to more episodes of Girls with Grafts