Firefighter Podcast
The Firefighters Podcast is an award winning global podcast developing, inspiring, connecting, motivating & celebrating the world of our emergency services operators through a series of wide-ranging conversations with those within our emergency services family.
Hosted by serving operational UK firefighter & Instructor Pete Wakefield who speaks with individuals from all walks of life who share a connection with, can add value to, or can develop those within the fire sector.
Our driving purpose is to create a legacy resource for the current and future generations of firefighters & first responders
Episodes
441 episodes
#454 IFIW Australia Ep04 Chief Jason Caughey - Commanding the Balance Between Aggression & Safety
In this episode of the International Fire Instructors Workshop (IFIW) Australia mini series, Fire Chief Jason Caughey of the Laramie County Fire Authority explores one of the most debated topics in the modern fire service: the relationship betw...
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Season 6
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Episode 454
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44:25
#453 Tradition & Reform: Navigating Change in the Fire Service with Beci Newton
Beci Newton is a Station Manager in the UK Fire and Rescue Service and an experienced fire behaviour instructor as well as other disciplines joins me for a conversation about our past, our present and our future, and how we are evolving the ide...
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Season 6
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Episode 453
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2:40:51
#452 IFIW Australia – Ep03 James Mendoza Large Volume Gas Cooling & The Home Depot Fire
In this episode of the IFIW Australia mini-series, James Mendoza, Captain and Training Officer with the San Jose Fire Department, takes us inside a major large volume fire at a Home Depot in 2022. With a background in education and microbiology...
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Season 6
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Episode 446
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53:08
#451 Challenge Season: Legends, Disruptors & the Rise of the British Firefighter Series with John Gregory
In this episode I sit down with my good friend John Gregory, one of the original trailblazers of the British Firefighter Challenge as we head into a challenge season that is bigger an...
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Season 6
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Episode 451
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1:13:26
#450 IFIW Australia – Ep02 Ed Hartin Fireground Sensemaking & Decision Making for Station Officers
In this episode recorded live at the International Fire Instructors Workshop 2026 in Australia, you’ll hear from Edward Hartin as he explores fireground sensemaking and decision making for the station officer. Drawing on more than fifty years i...
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Season 6
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Episode 450
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1:00:46
#449 London Fire Brigade - A UK Fire Brigade on a Global Scale with LFB Commissioner Jonathan Smith
London Fire Brigade protects one of the most complex urban environments on the planet. The resident population of London sits at around 9 million people, but that number is misleading. On a typical weekday, when commuters, tourists, and transie...
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Season 6
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Episode 449
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1:27:03
#448 IFIW Australia - Ep01 Karel Lambert Air Consumption During Tunnel Firefighting with IFE
This mini series opens a door into the International Fire Instructors Workshop 2026 in Australia, a gathering that for nearly two decades has been built on closed room conversations, honest challenge and the exchange of experience between some ...
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1:17:24
#447 Hard Things, Endurance & Bum Butter - an Adventure with Scott Butler
In this episode, I sit down with Scott Butler, a serving UK firefighter who has quietly built a life around choosing difficult things on purpose. Scott shares the pivotal moment in 2006 w...
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Season 6
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Episode 447
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2:52:10
#446 Debrief: Bethnal Green, London, July 20th 2004
This short debrief episode examines the Bethnal Green Road fire of 20 July 2004, a commercial premises fire in East London that resulted in the deaths of two London firefighters, Billy Faust and Adam Meere. Crews attended w...
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Season 6
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Episode 446
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9:36
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#445 Managers Enforce Rules, Leaders Enforce Values with Chris Case
I sit down with Chris Case, a firefighter who spent 25 years in Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service before making the leap to Canada and becoming Fire Chief of C...
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Season 6
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Episode 443
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1:42:49
#444 Debrief: Old Albert Mill, Whitworth, Lancashire, May 15th 2009
On this episode of we take a slow, deliberate look at the Old Albert Mill incident in Whitworth, Lancashire, from 15 May 2009. This is a structured incident debrief built directly from the original accident investigation report, with lar...
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Season 6
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Episode 444
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16:56
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#443 FireSport UK Festival of Fire Sport with Chief Fire Officer Chris Kirby
In this episode, I’m joined by Chris Kirby, Chief Fire Officer of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and Chair of FireSport UK, to talk about why bringing sport back matters right now. We focus on the Festival of Fire Sport and how ...
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Season 6
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Episode 444
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1:04:17
#442 Boots on the Ground at Intersec Dubai: A Firefighter’s Reflection on Global Innovation, Scale, and What Comes Next
This episode is a grounded debrief from being boots on the ground at Intersec Dubai, not a second hand summary or a glossy highlight reel. Intersec matters because it shows where global investment, policy attention, and operational think...
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59:48
#441 Beyond the Minimum Standard: The UK Firefighter Challenge Series & Northeast FF Challenge with Ben Le Fevre and Dan Watson
This episode kicks off a new series of conversations exploring the British Firefighter Challenge Series, a nationwide circuit made up of thirteen events running from April through to September 2026. From stair runs and regional challenge...
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Season 6
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Episode 441
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1:05:42
#440 Debrief: 3 floor residential Fire Massachusetts Nov 13 2019 Career Lieutenant Dies and Four Firefighters Injured
On November 13, 2019, a career lieutenant died, and four other firefighters were injured while fighting a residential structure fire. What began as a seemingly routine night-time call rapidly escalated into a complex, high-risk incident involvi...
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Season 6
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Episode 440
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35:15
#439 The Job, the Life & Everything in Between with Eternal Recruit Matt Akers
This episode is one of those conversations that quietly gets under your skin.I’m joined by Matt Akers, who currently serves in New Zealand, but whose journey through the fire service spans rural retained firefighting, aviation, Lo...
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Season 6
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Episode 439
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1:46:06
#438 Debrief Camp fire Paradise, California, USA, November 2018
In this episode, we take a deep, no-nonsense operational debrief of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, November 2018, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire of the modern era in the United States. We walk through the incident as it unf...
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Season 6
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Episode 438
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31:09
#437 The Great Liberties Whiskey Fire Dublin 1875 with Las Fallon
In this episode, Pete Wakefield is joined by Las Fallon to explore one of the most extraordinary and misunderstood fires in European fire service history: the Great Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875. This was not simply a large urban fire. It ...
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Season 6
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Episode 437
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1:25:36
#436 DEBRIEF: The Station Nightclub Fire 2003 Rhode Island USA
In this episode, we take a deep, minute-by-minute debrief of the Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island. A small ignition during a live music performance led to rapid smoke production, catastrophic loss of tenability, and the deat...
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Season 6
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Episode 436
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16:09
#435 Lucy Macleod on Identity Beyond the Uniform and the Work of Staying Human in the Fire Service
In this episode, I’m joined by Lucy Macleod for an honest conversation about identity, resilience, and what it really takes to sustain a long career in the fire service. We...
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Season 6
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Episode 435
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1:36:18
#434 Search Patterns, Nozzles and Who Wears BA with Dave Payton & Iain Evans of FIRE ATTACTICS
In part two, the conversation moves fully into the practical end of the fireground. Dave Payton and Iain Evans dig into search patterns, hose and branch techniques, and how different nozzle choices are used both in the UK and internationally. T...
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Season 6
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Episode 434
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1:12:16
#433 2025 Debrief: What Worked, What Didn’t, and What Matters Now
This episode is essentially a long, mostly uninterrupted monologue charting the slow and graceful unraveling of my internal thought processes over the last twelve months. There is no guest. There is no structure anyone would recognise as sensib...
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Season 6
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Episode 433
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1:53:40
#432 Fire Behaviour: Training vs Reality with Dave Payton & Iain Evans of FIRE ATTACTICS
In part one of this two-part episode, I’m joined by Dave Payton and Ian Evans, co-founders of Fire Tactics and two of the most experienced fire behaviour and breathing apparatus instructors to have worked in the UK fire service. With decades of...
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Season 6
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Episode 432
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1:07:57