Episode 307: Why Cooking Fires Still Drive So Many Fire Calls with Kevin Callahan & Will Boake

Episode notes

Why do cooking fires keep happening even when people know better?

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.

Cooking fires remain one of the most common reasons firefighters respond to homes. In this episode, Kevin Callahan and Will Boake from Pioneering Technology Corp share what they have learned through years of working directly with fire services across North America and internationally.

They discuss why unattended cooking continues to create risk in residential environments, particularly in social housing, and how engineering based solutions can stop fires before they start. Drawing on real world experience, they explain how collaboration with fire services helped shift safety standards, reduce repeat incidents, and protect both residents and first responders.

The conversation also expands into wildfire challenges, community risk reduction, and the importance of mission based work that focuses on prevention instead of reaction. This is a grounded discussion about building safer communities by designing systems that support human behavior rather than relying on luck.

So take a listen to hear what they have to share.

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

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Recorded live at IFE 2025 in Perth
2. 1:05 Pioneering Technology comes to Australia and New Zealand
3. 3:00 Cooking fires by the numbers
4. 5:08 Two million installs and a new stove standard
5. 6:01 OEMs, the aftermarket and the fire service
6. 7:30 Community Risk Reduction
7. 8:08 Canadian wildfire smoke and the human element
8. 11:26 Setting people up for success
9. 12:18 Mission-based work and sign-off

Questions answered in this episode

How big is the cooking fire problem in North America?

Kevin Callahan says cooking is the number one cause of fire in North America, with one in every two fires related to a stove. That is about 180,000 cooking fires per year that the fire service responds to, and for every fire they respond to there are another 30 to 40 where they don't get the call.

Hear it at 3:00

Why are old electric coil stoves still used in social housing?

Kevin Callahan explains that the old electric coil style stoves are cheaper and more resilient in the difficult social housing environment. While the general market gravitates towards glass and induction stoves, social housing uses coil stoves because they are better suited to that environment.

Hear it at 3:00

What is the track record of Pioneering Technology's cooking fire prevention product?

Kevin Callahan says they have installed about two million units in the U.S. over the last 15 years and there has never been a cooking fire.

Hear it at 3:00

What role does the fire service play in getting this technology adopted?

Kevin Callahan says they could not have changed the standard for electric coil stoves without the fire service. They worked with the fire service and federal and state governments on round tables, which ultimately led to regulators changing the standard. The fire service also uses the technology as part of Community Risk Reduction programs to address fire issues in vulnerable properties.

Hear it at 6:01

What does Kevin Callahan say drives his company's work?

Kevin Callahan says it is the whole concept of being mission based. It is not about going to work every day just to be a paycheck, but about going to work every day with like minded people and trying to make a difference in people's lives.

Hear it at 12:18

Transcript

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

Ep 307 transcript

Why Cooking Fires Still Drive So Many Fire Calls with Kevin Callahan & Will Boake

Speakers: Kevin Callahan, Kevin Sofen

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]. Pioneering Technology Corp's two guests are on one microphone; voice clustering found one guest voice, which context identifies as Kevin Callahan (he hands off to Will and refers to Will in the third person). Any lines Will Boake spoke could not be separated and are labeled Kevin Callahan.

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to our podcast mini-series, recorded live at the institution of Fire Engineers 2025, 25 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 was designed for the field, to the importance of mental health, very [inaudible 0:54]

[1:05] Kevin Callahan: away from Canada? Well it's the first time I've ever been here. Will's been here once before, a long time ago. We have a couple of products that we want to introduce in Australia and New Zealand. We're from Canada, but we sell most of our products in North America, so the United States. North America is very similar to New Zealand. The demographic is a similar. The electrical activity is similar. The problem of cooking fires with stoves is a big problem here. So we've been wanting to come to Australia for quite some time and now seem to do it. So here we are. Will?

[1:40] Kevin Sofen: Luckily it's a short flight to Perth from Canada.

[1:43] Kevin Callahan: It probably took about 25 hours to get here. Okay.

[1:46] Kevin Sofen: It wasn't easy but it's been worth it- to, [inaudible 1:52]

[2:07] Kevin Callahan: different things that they do. I used to think they the used. I used to sort of sit upstairs, play cards, eat, and once in a while, slide down the pool to go and fight a fire. But I later found out, no, they're first responders for so many things. You know, car, ax rings, heart attacks, people dying, bushfires, it's endless. So very impressed by how mission based they are. They really believe in what they do. And that's what it's all about. It's not just a job. It's a reason for being. And the fact that we're

[2:40] Kevin Sofen: So let's now dive into some of the product innovation. the [inaudible 2:46]

[3:00] Kevin Callahan: Okay, so I'll start with North America. cooking is the number one cause of fire. So one in every two fires are related to a stove. So that's about 180,000 cooking fires per year that the fire service responds to. and believe it or not for every fire they respond to there are anotheriasco to 40 where they don't get the call. It just happens, people get hurt, properties get damaged, but you never even hear about it. In Australia and New Zealand, our focus is primarily on social housing. In New Zealand through Kegoora, social housing is controlled by one entity and most of the stoves in that environment are the old electric coil-style stoves, which is similar to what we have in the social housing in North America. And the reason for that, they're cheaper and they're more resilient. It's a difficult environment. While the general market, there's a gravitation towards glass and induction-type stoves. Not so much in social housing, just because the environment's a [inaudible 4:02] to that as well, but we are not introducing it at this time because it requires a [inaudible 4:31] If you had one, I've seen one in the past, you may remember they turned red-hot.. They go up to about 900 degrees Celsius. Yeah, we need a hundred degrees Celsius to where water, so at 900 you can basically melt the pot. Hence, that's, you know, the reason for the problem. So we've installed about two million of these in the U.S. and that's over the last 15 years there's never been a cooking fire. So the fire service loves us because we've worked closely with them to introduce the technology. We protect people. We protect properties. We reduce the number of fire runs they have to make. And so we're making a real difference. A difference in fact to the point where we've disrupted the industry. So new stoves in the United States or in North America in general now have to include a technology like ours to prevent cooking fires and prevent oil emissions.

[5:50] Kevin Sofen: again, working with OEMs and getting this kind of built into the building of new products. And you mentioned the Fire Service loves you, I mean, and what role does the Fire Service play in this?

[6:01] Kevin Callahan: In terms of the OEMs, the goal going way back was to license the technology, to OEMs. That's sometimes tough to do, they're big companies like their own tech. So in terms of what we've been doing, even after the disruption, we've been focused on the aftermarket, because there's still about 30 million homes in North American social housing that have the old style stoves. Now we are starting to, in North America we're introducing our own line of stoves that will incorporate the technology. What we're thinking over here is that we may try to align ourselves with some of the OEMs here for this market. We're kind of at one here, but with the luxury of having 15 years of experience North American in terms of how to get past some of the pitfalls and to deal with the OEMs. In terms of the fire service, early on the OEMs didn't want to do anything about this and kind of reluctant to get into into it. But the reason is they met the existing standards. So they were indemnified from any liability. So there was no need to do anything. They didn't even want to talk about fires. So it was with the fire service and the federal and state governments in the US that we worked together on round tunnels. And ultimately, the OEMs, along with the regulators, decided they were going to change the standard for electric coil, and that's how it happened. We couldn. We couldn't have done it without the fire service. In addition, we work closely. You may not be familiar with this, but Community Risk Reduction is a program that exists here in Australia. It's also big in North America and basically that's fire prevention people on the ground working with their local community and trying to address fire-related issues in vulnerable properties or with vulnerable populations. So, we're part of their toolkit. By way of example, you know, it might be a couple of buildings in a neighborhood where they have hundreds of cooking fires a year. I mean, they will go to those buildings and ago, we have a solution for it. We will implement the technology and we can make the problem go away.

[8:08] Kevin Sofen: But we do it together. Speaking of of making the problem go away, being a Chicagoan in the summer of being impacted collaboratively by this Canadian wildfire smoke but also American wildfire smoke but it's a challenge and I know this is shifting a little bit away from cooking fires but you guys having some knowledge and context and then the Canadian wildfire dynamic and Community Risk Reduction being a piece of this and Forest Management being a piece of this. What's your guys' State of the Union right now? Are there thoughts in terms of the wildfire challenges that persist within Canada? And any sort of hot takes that Will and Kev got based on some of the challenges but also maybe path forward with hopefully continue to try and get the problem somewhat under? I'm kind. But

[8:51] Kevin Callahan: I'll start then pass from the well. So of what I know, it's been a very hot summer right across the country, hotter than it has been a long time in Canada, and like Australia, Canada was very big. Typically, the fires are isolated to northern British Columbia or northern Alberta. But this year, lots of fires are right across the country. So in the east, typically, we don't have them. It's become a big problem. So there's like a waft of smoke coming right across the country and down in the US. And because the majority of the people in Canada live in the border with the United States, we're all affected too. And we've had some of the worst. Here's the environment hasn't been any worse in some of the major cities ever. So it's been tough for everybody. We can't control the wind and quite often it's been the Americans where they've had the fires and they. It's blown north. One of the problems I see is that, you know, because they're coming to Ontario and other places, whether or not typically prevalent, we don't really know how to deal with it and you know and you, we have fire bands all venting the fire bands because it's kind of like, it's kind of the situation with a stone. I never have a fire a fire on my stove. I don't need any sort of protection. I'm on a property up north in northern Ontario. I'm a very responsible person. I will burn breath pressure. I will have a campfire for my kids during the fire ban. And I can get away with that because I'm a responsible person. Well, the problem is that something they're not responsible. It's when things get out of control and then they have no control. And the problem is a lot of these areas, they don't have access to water and pumps they can't address the problem before it actually gets out of control. I don't know what the stats say, but I know that the human element is a big problem. And that's something that we need to address. I'm already trying to address it with cooking fires. We need to address it with public behavior as well. One of the big things within the fire, service is engineering solutions and coming to an event like this, I looked at some of the drones that get raining in the thick of the fire and help with the firefighting. From an. engineering standpoint, you just have to keep working towards technology solutions for as small of a problem as a cooking fire versus, you know, major forest fire. That got stuff that went on in southern California last year. Why?

[11:26] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. Well, it seems like a lot of this stuff is how can we sometimes engineer the human out, but not necessarily engineer the human out, sort of engineering ways to set humans up for-for success, whether it's from within the kitchen to whether it's, again, living in a housing community. And that's a combination of policy, it's a combination some engineering and ideally trying to not rely on hope and. Luck, but there's a, and so I'm kind of the kind of around us about here. And I actually, I know we got the, we got the commissioner here waiting in line. So now that I'm kicking you guys out of the podcast booth, and they surely, but I'm curious in the service, like final thoughts from both of you guys in terms of like, is there a words of wisdom or quote that within what doing a pioneering tech. Like, anything that both Will and Kevin live by in regards to a quote or a life lesson that kind of drives you in your business, or it could be something just generally completely random within your daily life.

[12:18] Kevin Callahan: I think it's what I touched on earlier. For me, it's a whole concept of being mission based. It's not about going to work every day just to be a paycheck. It's about going to work every day with like-minded people and trying to make a difference in people's lives. and people who work at our company or are involved with our company do so because they feel good about it. So that's something that I'm proud of. I think Will would say the same. [inaudible 12:49]

[13:04] Kevin Sofen: Appreciate it, Will and Kev. Well, and thank you. I got my maple leaf flag on my camera over there. So I will continue to wrap that with pride and appreciate the work that you're both doing to continue to make the communities across the world safer with your fire technology solution. So thanks for your doing and keep going.

[13:18] Kevin Callahan: Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate the effort.

[13:20] Kevin Sofen: Until next time.

[13:21] Kevin Callahan: See you.

[13:22] Kevin Sofen: Cheers.

[13:25] Kevin Callahan: Appreciate it.

[13:26] Kevin Sofen: And that's a wrap for 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.