Episode 298: Building Safer Communities Through Fire Engineering and Frontline Experience with Jeremy Fewtrell

Episode notes

What does it look like when a fire service treats prevention and response as one mission?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.

Recorded live at the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) 2025 Conference alongside the AFAC, WAFA, and Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Conference in Perth, Australia.

Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell of Fire and Rescue New South Wales joins the Smart Firefighting Podcast to share how prevention and response work best when they move together as one mission. He reflects on how the Institution of Fire Engineers shaped his early understanding of fire behavior and why that connection between engineering knowledge and frontline experience keeps firefighters and communities safer.

Jeremy also talks about lithium ion battery risks, current research efforts, and how cross government collaboration is guiding product standards, safe use education, and recycling practices. He discusses the new organizational strategy through 2030 with an emphasis on strong leadership, capable people, and a deeper focus on community risk reduction.

He closes with 2 simple principles that have guided his career: know your job, and value the power of a single supportive conversation.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share.

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro, live from Perth
2. 0:47 Meet Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell
3. 1:18 What the IFE meant to him
4. 2:43 Why prevention and response must work together
5. 5:21 Measuring the fire service beyond call volume
6. 7:27 Lithium-ion batteries: clean energy is safe energy
7. 10:09 Working across government on battery safety
8. 11:32 E-bikes, modified batteries and public transport
9. 14:10 The 2030 strategy for Fire and Rescue NSW
10. 16:46 Open doors for innovators
11. 18:28 What excites him about the next decade
12. 20:23 Words to live by: know your job, and the power of conversation

Questions answered in this episode

What is the Institution of Fire Engineers and why did Jeremy Fewtrell join?

Jeremy Fewtrell joined the Institution of Fire Engineers before becoming a firefighter because of its role in learning and sharing knowledge. He says the IFE provided rich study materials on fire behavior, like backdraft and flashover, with far more depth than his recruit training offered, which really got him hooked.

Hear it at 1:22

Why does Fire Rescue New South Wales focus on both prevention and response?

Jeremy Fewtrell explains that the Fire and Rescue Act, dating back to 1883, gave the department a legal obligation to prevent and respond to fires. More prevention work means safer firefighters, fewer significant incidents, and lower risks in buildings. He says most firefighters would rather not see fatalities or serious injuries happen.

Hear it at 3:08

How is Fire Rescue New South Wales addressing lithium ion battery fires?

Jeremy Fewtrell says the department is working with Fair Trading on product safety standards, the Environment Protection Authority on disposal and recycling, and Transport on managing micro mobility devices on public transport. He emphasizes they are not anti battery technology, but want clean energy to be safe energy.

Hear it at 8:30

What are the key priorities in Fire Rescue New South Wales' new five year strategy?

The strategy has four key areas: ensuring staff are safe and capable with better leadership development, strong financial and resource management, reducing community risk through deeper embedding of risk reduction work, and preparing for the future by becoming more agile and receptive to new technologies.

Hear it at 14:21

What advice does Jeremy Fewtrell give to firefighters and leaders?

He says know your job really well, whatever your expertise, to raise the bar. He also says never underestimate the power of conversations, because a word of encouragement or pointer in a certain direction can inspire people coming up through the ranks.

Hear it at 20:35

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 298 transcript

Building Safer Communities Through Fire Engineering and Frontline Experience with Jeremy Fewtrell

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Jeremy Fewtrell

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to our podcast mini-series recorded live at the Institution of Fire Engineers 2025 conference in Perth, Australia, alongside the AFAC, WAFA, and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience conferences. With over 28 conversations with fire chiefs, engineers, researchers and innovators, we explored how the fire and emergency community is adapting to a rapidly changing world. From climate resilience and community-led adaption, to the rise of new technologies like satellites, AI, and simple tools designed for the field to the importance of mental health, diversity, and global collaboration. These episodes highlight the shared challenges and inspiring solutions shaping the future of safety. Enjoy. All right. sitting inside Tim Tam Arena alongside Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell from Fire Rescue, New South Wales. What's going on, Jeremy?

[0:56] Jeremy Fewtrell: Good to be with you.

[0:57] Kevin Sofen: It's a, busy day. [inaudible 1:01] What is the Institution of Fire Engineers? What do they do and why do they exist?

[1:22] Jeremy Fewtrell: Well, I guess I joined the Institution of Fire Engineers before I became a firefighter. I wanted to become a firefighter and I passed around and got pointed towards the IFE because of the important role that it plays in learning and sharing knowledge. And so that was really the real fundamental part of who and what IFE is for me. Tapping into that great pool of knowledge, bringing people together from all. and benefit of their experience and wisdom and also at a time where there was no one else sort of doing formal study, setting exams, having a level of level of, I remember when I started as an IFE student then became a firefighter I was studying for the IFE exams there was massive big questions in the exams on fire behaviour, things like backdraft and flashover and reading volumes of material from the IFE texts about that and really having a good understanding of it and then in our recruit training materials it was like probably three or four sentences of text and I went wow like there's so much to know and for a really fundamental key part of your job as a firefighter, keep yourself and to be an effective operational firefighter, the richness that was provided by IFE really stood out to me and that sort of really got me hooked.

[2:43] Kevin Sofen: One thing that has me hooked on IFE that I so admire what the past leadership as well as current from Ryan Cleggett to Jason De Silva that everyone continues to do is creating this bridge of knowledge between the fire engineering world and the firefighting world. Sort of this prevention and response. Why this may sound like a rhetorical question but a why is that so important to have this sort of in response world sing in the same song? I

[3:08] Jeremy Fewtrell: think there's a there's a whole range of reasons. If you go right to a The more work we do in prevention, the safer our firefighters are because there will be fewer significant rants when there is a significant incident. The risks in the building are not as great as they would be without that prevention work and that good fire engineering design incorporated in it. For the community, it's huge because we're keeping them safe. And I talked to our recruits and all of our staff about this. We're empowered in New South Wales by the Fire and Rescue Act has. It's Genesis back in 1883 being reviewed and updated various times along that. But even right from the original inception of that act, it talked about us having a legal obligation to prevent and respond to fires. And so right from the very inception of the fire department in New South Wales, that prevention bit was there. And at different times along the history, the focus has shifted, I think, and people sort of got siloed a view of it and started to just maybe focus. on obligation, but I think what avoid or stop it from happening. And then if it. premise I go wrong. People may do things, otherwise safe systems, so there'll always be a response function. And for those of us, and you've seen the trauma that happen when there is a fatality or a serious injury. personal experience level, I think most firefighters can resonate with that. As important as it is to be a good operational practitioner and be very proud of what we do, we'd much rather not see those things happen and have those bad impacts on people.

[5:21] Kevin Sofen: And to continue on that thought of maybe there's and metrics that were evaluated on in regards to how many calls did you go on this week? How many exercises did you, or how many, how many saves did you have, or how many fires have you gone through this year? Where maybe it, is just that our KPIs are key performance indicators in terms of how were evaluated are not correct. And I remember there was a gentleman named Stefan who told me the ultimate goal is zero calls. The ultimate. is having no responses granted. We know in the perfect world that's that's very difficult to achieve. But do you think some of the ways that fire service is evaluated in a regards to this idea of how many how it calls how many times a truck left the station is a is an incorrect way of evaluating the productivity or effectiveness of a fire department.

[6:05] Jeremy Fewtrell: I think there's a risk in it skewing the, and people are starting to put greater importance on things over other aspects. So the challenge for us is making sure that any work that we're doing in that community risk reduction, fire prevention, fire education space, that we're valuing it as highly as anything we might do in the operational space. And even the conversations that firefighters have at the station, you know, firefighters will say, Oh, we had a great job. You might change shifts in the morning and you talk to the night shift as they're going off. Oh, we had a cracker job last night. We just got to pause and I sort of tell our people, you should be really proud of what professional display of fire, fighting skills. That's fantastic. We should be proud of that. But we also just need to, make sure we're not catching in a way that we're actually inadvertently taking any sort of joy or pleasure out of someone else's suffering. I think. And I think that's the sort of nuance in the language, the balance that we have to find. So putting that emphasis on the value of risk reduction, community engagement work, getting the safety messages out, it's really incumbent on all of us particularly in leadership roles to elevate that up. And so I think there's some pitfalls there where we do have, at times, too great a focus on just the numbers, I mean, that can skew people's perception of what they think is important.

[7:27] Kevin Sofen: And to continue on that conversation as well as something earlier with this dynamic between the engineering world and the firefighting world, one of the biggest, most trending topics within the world of public safety is the issue of lithium ion battery fires, lithium ion, whether it's micro mobility, whether it's electrical vehicles and how there's a lot of conveniences that it offers to the general John Doe, but it was often maybe overlooked. What were some of these risks that present to firefighters, to public safety members as it pertains to how did we respond? into a system for their EV car or the idea of bringing an EV bike onto a train station. All these very difficult questions that were announced. [inaudible 8:12]

[8:30] Jeremy Fewtrell: I that we have tackled this issue, but doing it in an appropriate proportionate and measured way. Lithium ion batteries are in so many different everyday days. We also estimate that the house holds the same size as 12 and 20 lithium ion battery powered devices in them. They're not going anywhere soon. There's also the bigger picture of what's happening in terms of energy transition and cleaner sources of power. And these batteries are going to be part of that. I guess the balance that we need to find and the influence that I want our organization to have on those that are making those bigger picture policies is we're We're not anti that sort of batteries or any other alternative energy system, but we just need to make sure that clean energy is safe energy. Over the years, whether it was from coal powered fire stations or gas or anything other generating source, we've worked out ways to do it safely and we're rushing so quickly into these alternate technologies that there's still some lessons to be. So we're not anti them. We just want it to be done as safely as possible and not to [inaudible 9:39] Fire Service, Foreign Rescue NSW, we've been leading that discussion because we're probably seeing it first hand. a daily occurrence now, consistently across the state, but be able to bring the other parts of government that are involved in this. So we've done a lot of work with our fair trading department. So they're the ones that are responsible for product safety standards. Our data. Our data is a really valuable for them to be able to demonstrate that there is a need for government to have a greater role in regulation.

[10:21] Kevin Sofen: Yeah.

[10:21] Jeremy Fewtrell: Now they've been responsive to that. We've also been working with the Environment Protection Authority to go look at the product life cycle. What's happening with these batteries, either in disposal and recycling where that's not done properly and they're catching fire. And the fires in the waste and recycling stream are huge. And that sector will tell you they're having thousands of those fires each year, but also making sure that the batteries are appropriately recycled at the end of their life so that the valuable contents of that can be repurposed rather than going to landfill. And so we've been able to work with EPA and Fair Trading to sort of cover that full lifecycle. So product safety standards, raising the quality, the, quality of the products that come in. Fire and Rescue talking about how to use those products safely and charging them safely and what to do if there's any issues and then EPA with a disposal. And then at the moment we're working with our colleagues from Transport talking about how do we manage these issues of lithium-ion battery powered devices, micro-mobility devices on public transport systems and that's a really interesting policy challenge for the fire service to be involved. Typically the fire services haven't be involved to that extent in policy so it's really exciting thing for us to be carving out a space in there and having a valuable contribution to safely contribute to that public to bite and set some really good public. Policy

[11:32] Kevin Sofen: and I asked to build on what you said my father in law lives in some community in Florida and they have an electrical bike they bought it's a nicer bike and they use it to for leisurely strolls and whatnot. Not but there were a lot of people who complained about the fact that they were bringing these bikes into the building and. Charging them and then they ultimately it brought up to the H it was it was a very contentious and then they a. I ultimately found out that their insurance ultimately was like, hey, no, you can't chargeea and then it's sort of in a gray area now where it's like, okay, well, if you charge it, when you're awake, it's okay. But there's still. It seems like there's a lot of these existing infrastructure, whether it's parking lots or whether it's trains about if you have these, micro mobility vehicles that they are bought with the certified products that they are charged properly and they're maintained properly. It's not. It seems to be much less a risk, but you have some of these retrofitted, upfitted sort of EVV contraptions that seem to be the bad outliers that are happening at an increased rate. How do you address, again, regulating these kind of devices, especially on buses and trains where you have people who are just trying to move around and if you're trying to tell them, hey, I know you can't bring that bike on. How is New South Wales addressing that issue?

[12:45] Jeremy Fewtrell: Yeah, and a lot of it relies on the data, and it's who, still quite an emerging field,. You know, like, well, e-bikes and scooters been around for a few years now, we're still getting a better understanding each year of what the data is telling us and how many of those incidents we're having. And so, when people are trying to do that sort of calculus around, well, where's the risk scale, and what's acceptable and what's not, I think we're still a little bit short on being fully informed to make that decision based on the data. So what the work we're doing is really important. We're doing some research on that as well, to try and get a better understanding of how these things behave and the things that can really accelerate the risk factors coming up. We're seeing a lot of trouble with modified bikes and where people are modifying batteries either at the time, in the modification process that they're having a fire and having dramas or through the life of it once the battery has been modified that it then subsequently has some sort of catastrophic failure. So it's very much a really sort of steep learning curve and it's all the more reason why a fire services should be really thoroughly engaged in what's happening and working collectively [inaudible 13:55]

[14:10] Kevin Sofen: how can technology help support us here, or these programs help support us here? I'm curious, what are some of the gaps and priorities that you see for your fire service in the next couple of months, couple of years?

[14:21] Jeremy Fewtrell: Yeah, it's a good time to ask because we've just released a new strategy for the organization for the next five years to take us out to 2030. And some of those things that became apparent through the process of talking to people from all different parts of our organization and sort of posing those types of questions to them, we sort of distilled it down to sort of four key areas. So making sure our staff are safe and capable and there's the obvious health and safety components of that, but also one of the things that really stood out to me is we've got to invest more heavily in building our leadership capability in the organisation, because if people have good leaders, all those other workplace issues tend to be much less. People are having a better experience when they're coming to work and inevitably that means we're also providing a better service to the community. We're going to be focusing on really having a good approach to financial and resource management to get that real strong credibility that we're running our show well, but we're also looking ahead to see what we need and we're forecasting as best you can anticipate the things that we'll need in the years ahead and that we're doing that to give government time to sort of plan to go, okay, this is what the fire is going to need over the next 10 or 15 years. We can support them on that. Reducing the risk in our community is a huge one. We spent a lot of the time already touching on that, but really embedding that more richly and deeply in what our firefighters see as part of their everyday job of a component of that is community risk reduction work. When I was a firefighter, I was lucky enough to do. An exchange to Merseyside, and when the chief officer there and the work they were doing at that time, really leading a very proactive approach to getting the risk that was in that Liverpool and surrounding community down from what was one of the highest rates of fire fatalities in the UK, to bring it down to a much reduced level, really had a significant benefit on the community. So I draw a lot on that experience. And then all fire services, I think, and ours is no exception, need to sort of think about how we prepare and plan for the future. And we like doing what we're doing, it's based on a lot of good reason and a lot of sort of proven, tried and tested approaches. At times, though, that can become too rigid for us and that we're not as agile and quick to respond to changes our environment or new technologies that might be becoming available to us. So one of the other challenges for us is making ourselves more receptive to those types of developments and being able to shorten the timeframe it takes to sort of go from a concept to actually embedding it and implementing it in our service.

[16:46] Kevin Sofen: I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and new this I this doesn't work change this that could work and I know working with groups like IFE and You know being here at AFAC has a good opportunity to just have these conversations But for groups that are maybe interested in working with fire rescue New South Wales I know there's a rich academic program and a lot, others Universities are there any programs for early stage companies or entrepreneurs that have that crazy idea that may actually be applicable And the way any message you say to them about when if they were to read this five-year roadmap They're like, hey, I actually got an idea you should be aware of.

[17:30] Jeremy Fewtrell: Well, that's one of the bits that we want to actually work on in that preparing for type of focus we've got, so that we do have an easier open access for innovation. And people think I've got an innovative solution. I can bring it to Fire and Rescue. They think of us as, hey, I'm going to go and talk to them. So we've got that in some aspects and certainly the connections that we've got through bodies like the IFE. We've got some partnerships with some of the universities that have really sort of helped to do that. But the pace of change, the way that the built environment, the impacts of climate change, all these things are going to move so quickly for us. We've got to get so much quicker at recognizing them and adjusting to it and introducing whatever new approaches or technologies we need. So, and I think having some greater interaction with those that are the entrepreneurs and the innovators will be a better thing for us and for our people as well, because they'll realize and see a different approach to these sort of things.

[18:28] Kevin Sofen: So maybe I could read the roadmap, but I'm curious, kind of two final questions around this out here. What are you most excited about for the future of the fire rescue in New South Wales over the course of the next one, five, ten years? What are you excited about?

[18:41] Jeremy Fewtrell: Well, Sydney's a growing city and New South Wales is a growing state. And so from a fire service perspective, there'll be some growth there. We've had significant commitment from government for an additional 600 firefighters. We've got a new major international airport opening in the west of Sydney. There's a whole other part of Sydney that they're gonna be building and hundreds of thousands of people, and so it's going to be a really exciting thing to be involved in that and contributing to the creation of a We've got our first fire station. They are just about to start construction on that first fire station in that precinct. At the moment, so that'll be sort of, you know, really exciting one over the next 12 months or so. And over the next five years, again, that sort of growth and innovation, I'm really excited to see what the cohort of new and upcoming leaders will bring to our organization. We've got a bit of a generational change happening. We've had a significant proportion of our workforce who started in the late 80s and 90s that are now reaching the end of their careers. And so it's going to be really exciting to see the impact that new wave of people has on the organization. And then this whole energy transition where we're positioning ourselves right into the middle of the discussion, as I talked about before, the influence that we're having on shaping policy. I'd love to have a time just to be able to fast forward 10 or 15 years, and to see that. And I think if we can get it right and certainly have really good positive influence on it'll be good not only for the community, for the sustainability outcomes, but also for our firefighters and their safety.

[20:23] Kevin Sofen: That's awesome, Jeremy. And my final question I want to throw to you is, and this is kind of out of left field, but any sort of quote or words of wisdom that you live by as you continue to lead your fire service, is there any quote or word of wisdom that speaks to you?

[20:35] Jeremy Fewtrell: There's probably stuff that I've learned early on. There's probably two things I'd say. One is a sort of a quote is very basic but know your job and I think for all of our people in our organisation to really know their role really well and what there's so much of different expertise, whether it's in the firefighting space, whether it's in the built environment and the fire safety space, or the rescue side of things, let alone hazardous materials and all that. So really challenging our people to be able to stand up and sort really well. And again, that'll, that'll raise the bar. And then the second one is just never underestimate the power of conversations can have. I sort of benefited from that, I guess, at times, as I was coming up through the ranks of people maybe seeing something in me, but not only seeing it by following that up with a bit of conversation or, you know, word of encouragement or a pointer in a certain direction. And I think all of us, particularly those that are in any sort lead position. It's something that we should really do because it can just sort of inspire and help those that are coming through behind us to navigate their path ahead.

[21:42] Kevin Sofen: Right on, Jeremy. Well, thank you for all the leadership and wisdom that you've bestowed upon us today. And I think there's hopefully a good chance that not only this being our second podcast, that hopefully maybe we'll run it back next year in Melbourne.

[21:54] Jeremy Fewtrell: Yeah, I look forward to seeing you there. Thanks very much.

[21:56] Kevin Sofen: Thanks, Jeremy.

[21:57] Jeremy Fewtrell: I appreciate it.

[21:58] Kevin Sofen: And that's a wrap this episode of the Smart Firefighting podcast. If you found value in this conversation, hit like, leave a comment, share it to someone and tell us what you enjoyed most. Take care. And thanks for listening.