HVAC and refrigerant challenges with FDNY Captains Chris Collier and Dan Gordon, Lt. James Pirot and fire code counsel, Kelly Carr

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It turned out construction workers were doing hot work and some welding on the HVAC and refrigerant system on the roof and caused a pretty spectacular fire. This is a new but common challenge that we are dealing with in the fire department and the topic of our discussion today. Welcome to the FDNY Pro podcast. I'm your host, Battalion Chief Anthony Pascachello. On today's episode we've gathered our returning guests, Captain Chris Collier, Captain Dan Gordon and Lieutenant Jim Perot. And an additional guest with us today is Miss Kelly Carr, the FDNY Fire Code Council. Today we will discuss HVAC and refrigerant systems which use new environmentally improved compounds and the hazards that are associated with them. Welcome everyone. Thanks Chief. Good to be here. Thank you. So I had an incident last summer in an elementary school. The run came in as an automatic alarm and when we arrived on scene we saw the traditional fire drill set up of all the students and staff across the street and away from the school. So we assumed it was just going to be a routine incident. The school custodian came out and met my officers and said they smoke on the sixth floor in a computer lab. So with that the members gathered their equipment and started heading to that location. And I went to the fire command station in the school. I confirmed on the alarm panel that the smoke detector and the sixth floor computer lab did go off and the first report I received from the latter company officer was that they had a light haze in that room and that they were investigating further. With that they school staff said that they had HVAC technicians that were there earlier doing some repair work. I asked if they knew what the repair work was and if the technicians were there and they told me no they went out on a lunch break. I asked them to please call them back and at that point our members went to the roof area and shut down the particular HVAC unit. When the HVAC technicians arrived we told them what was going on and they went up to the scene to check. It turned out that when they had done their maintenance work they had over pressurized the system with whatever coolant that they were using and at that time it was escaping into the sixth floor classroom and that was the haze that we saw. We had to go through an extensive ventilation effort because we didn't want to have the students come back into that environment but it showed the highlight of how an incident that you thought would be a routine one turned into something completely different. Chris I understand you had an incident similar to that. I was working in Midtown Ladder Company one night we received a run for smoke in a coffee shop around 8pm middle of summertime. We were the second to do truck company the first to truck company arrived and reported that they had a haze in the coffee shop on the first floor of a 21 story multiple dwelling. Building was about 200 by 100 commercial on the first floor being that coffee shop had a parking garage in the basement and sub basement levels. We stopped into the first floor coffee shop to see where this haze was that they were talking about so that we could investigate opposite where they were to try and figure out what was going on. When we stopped in there we noticed that this haze was white and it had no odor. We thought maybe there was a car running improperly in the parking garage or something like that so we headed down to the basement to start our portion of the investigation and we had no condition in the parking garage, no CO readings, no nothing so we started trying to get into the area underneath the coffee shop in the basement. It took us a little while to get through a few doors that we had to get access through and we found our way into the super shop in the basement of the multiple dwelling where we also had that similar white haze condition and now we noticed a little bit of an odor of oil found our way around down there through a few more doors eventually wound up in the HVAC unit room where we found the air handler unit and we located a leak in a refrigerant line inside that air handler unit. Once we found the location of the refrigerant leak we were able to isolate power to that air handler unit. Once we did that we were able to vent and the haze dissipated so we were confident that was the cause of that condition. We got the Altair meter and took some readings to make sure that there was no oxygen displacement especially since we were below grade operating in a basement. Once that was confirmed everything was good we turned the property back over to the building super. Jim can you just touch on the haze aspect because it seems like a common trait when we go to these incidents. Sure so within the refrigeration process there's a loop for refrigerant. That loop consists of the refrigerant itself going through a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve and an evaporator. Now since it's traveling through mechanical parts namely the compressor it needs some sort of oil in there to keep the moving components of that compressor from seizing. So what they add in all these refrigerants is various different types of oil. So when you have a breaking line or some kind of failure in the system you'll see a haze. That haze is a mixture of the oil and the refrigerant that's being expelled. So what Chris saw was the oil from within the refrigerant being aerosolized within the room itself. That's why it's such an important thing to keep your SCBA on and act with due regard for safety because not only is it an asphyxiant but now you have oil itself being turned into a fine particulate and aerosolized in the space and you do not want to read any of that stuff in. You mentioned before was that the system had been overcharged and it's now releasing the refrigerant. A lot of these systems that are built today have over pressurization components within them. It's doing what it's supposed to do. So when we go to these things finding that leak and thinking, "Hey, I'll just reset it may not be a good thing," because there's a build up, there's an obvious build up of refrigerant or pressure within the system. So that mechanical component of the system is doing what it's supposed to do. It's releasing the pressure within, keeping that vessel from becoming over pressurized and exploding. So you have to understand the components that you're looking at when you're at these incidents and that component was doing what it was supposed to do. It was releasing the pressure of an over pressurized vessel. Chris, you had a second incident that you responded to? Yes, so I was working again in a midtown ladder company and we responded second due to a hotel around 10am for a report of fumes in the building. Being second due, we were in modified response mode as we were getting close. I was kind of trying to consider what this could possibly be. A lot of times we get runs for fumes that turn out to be paint cleaning products or even a vehicle idling outside the occupancy. So this was a 16 story hotel and the SID said that they had access stairs from the lobby to the third floor. So as we got within handy talking range, I heard the first new engine officer give a report and I could tell that he was talking through his face piece which peaked my interest and as we pulled up we got off the rig, we brought meters with us and there was civilians exiting the building complaining that their eyes and throats were burning. So during the investigation there was a report of HVAC work being done on the fifth floor set back roof. So I took my company to that location and we found the air handler unit on that fifth floor set back roof was opened up like they were doing work on it and it had several refrigeration containers laying next to it empty. The air handler unit was also labeled lobby so I was going down the path of a refrigerant leak from that air handler unit and that air handler unit pumping the refrigerant into the lobby causing the condition that we were encountered with. That just seemed like a natural cause for this because of what we found but the symptoms of these occupants didn't really match that of a refrigerant leak with the burning eyes and throats but we still had to investigate this HVAC unit. So we did shut down the HVAC unit which we would have done as part of the investigation anyway and later on it was discovered that the cause of the issue was actually a discharge of a mace canister on the third floor. There were just a couple takeaways with that where that the HVAC unit was not the cause of the issue but the HVAC unit spread the contaminant throughout the lobby and the first three floors so that air handler unit served the lobby but it was connected to those three floors by the access stairs so that's why the condition was persistent in those areas of the building. We could have used the one way voice communications from the fire command station in the lobby to guide the occupants to stay in their rooms. The first room place was appropriate for this scenario but the area of the fire command station was compromised due to the irritant so that wasn't possible. And then the access stairs and the HVAC unit like I said spread the contaminant around but it was not the source of the issue whereas in the first example I gave you the HVAC system was the source of the issue. So Chris to your point the HVAC system plays an important role even though it wasn't the cause of this incident. Again, like you said, the irritant could have been circulating throughout the building because of it. So either way, the system had to be shut down and then further investigation determined the true cause of that irritant to the occupants of the building. Jim, in relation to the refrigerants, you had an incident also recently that you were at that involved the refrigerant, correct? - Yeah, so recently I responded to a fire, second floor, kitchen fire. Went in, literally happened quick, gave a radio report where the seat of the fire was, let go of the mic, all I remember hearing is a pop on my right side and then seeing a blue flame go above my head. At that point, I exited the room and got burnt on my back. And when we were overhauling, I went to the side of the room where I heard the pop and saw where the blue flame came from and the only thing that was in that section of the room was a refrigerator. Knowing somebody information I know, that led me to believe that possibly the refrigerator had released its gas into the atmosphere, which actually in some of the household refrigerators could be isobutane or propane. You could figure that out by just looking in your refrigerator and seeing the number that is associated with that refrigerant. Meaning, if you look in your refrigerator, it says R290 on it, that's propane. Or if you look in there and it says R600, that's isobutane. You'll mainly find nose on newer refrigerators and small half-size refrigerators. So Jim, in regards to this incident, it was a pretty significant fire in which the refrigerant let loose, but the injuries that you incurred were pretty serious. Right, I did get second and third degree burns on my back. It is one of those things that we should be talking about as an industry because we're going to see more so of these types of refrigerants. In that type of refrigerator, you'll have ounces of refrigerants. It's not a lot as opposed to your home HVAC system which has pounds of refrigerant. But what we go to is that couple of ounces of refrigerant, which is isobutane or propane, just enough to push the fire over into the next stage that we counter often. So it is something that when we respond to refrigeration leaks or going into an area with a lot of refrigerants, keep that in the back of your mind. It's not just a refrigerant. What's behind the word refrigerant? It's a lot of different things. It's propane, isobutane, or even ammonia. So basically that flammability consistency now adds a new dynamic on the fire ground. Correct, yes. And it's something to keep in mind that it may happen before we get there or it may happen like in my instance while operation is being conducted. While we're doing an operation. You don't hear any hissing, there's no alarms, there's nothing. The only thing that it was was the fire was blowing out at a kitchen and they put their refrigerator in the dining room and the fire was blowing out at a kitchen onto the dining room. Just when it gets to that pressure, it pops and then you get that little bit of flame coming out of it. And that could have been just enough to push the rest of the room over to catch on fire. But are there any bells or whistles? No, is there anything that we can do about it? Just be aware of what you're walking into. And if you're walking into a whole store full of refrigerators, you can have to deal with that. Maybe that's something that we as the fire department need to take a look at. So a more cautious approach. And again, the emphasis on water on the fire is key on this type of a situation. Yeah, the fire doesn't go out until you put water on it. So the quicker you get the water on it, the quicker all the problems go away, as always. There's a few different ways that the flammable refrigerants can cause or contribute to the fire. The first one I can think of is a refrigerant leak for some reason that then finds an ignition source and causes a fire. The second one would be an over-pressurization of the refrigerant system during a fire from inflame impengement that causes a release of the refrigerant that then contributes to the fire, which is I think what happened in Jim's case. And the third one I can think of is us damaging the refrigerant system, particularly the refrigerant line sets when we're overhauling either during or right after the fire is knocked down, causing the release of a flammable refrigerant, which would then contribute to the fire or cause an area to light back up where the fire had previously been knocked down. That's a good point. Dan, can you touch on some of the first two company operations at these types of incidents? Again, like we said, sometimes it's not a parent. It might be a smoke detector that was activated due to the mist and so forth. But it's coming in as an engine or a lot of company. What do you think some of the actions should be? Sure, we're going to keep this. Again, as you said, first-do company response, not the hazmat side of things. And you mentioned a lot of these very rarely do they come in as a refrigerant leak, although some do. Many times it's a class three and odor of smoke or a visible smoke, something like that. And so initially you may not be getting off with the equipment that we require for these types of incidents, mainly the Altair or other meter in capabilities, depending on the company that you're working with. So if it's determined that it may be a refrigerant leak or something other than smoke, definitely would be important to go back and get that Altair meter. That's really going to be the central focus for the first two companies. It's not going to take care of the entire incident. We are going to need more specialty hazmat resources. But for those initial concerns of safety for both us and civilians, the Altair meter has to be one that comes into play fairly quickly. And so depending on the Altair meter that you have, they're either going to be the combustible gas, which we'll talk about in a minute. And oxygen, some of the other meters, the Altair meters also have hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide on there as well. So our initial main concern, even before, if you're able to isolate the leak and take care of that, that's great. But really our main concern is a primary search and evacuation of the affected area and calling in additional resources if that's required. As we've talked about with our high rise, utilizing building personnel is going to be a main focal point here. Certainly if you have HVAC technicians on scene, that's an even better advantage to have. But utilizing the building engineer or staff, depending on the type of building that it is is going to be a priority of mine to make sure that we can kind of track down where the leak is, where the affected areas are, shut down the HVAC system, if necessary, to keep the refrigerant from being blown to other areas of the building. But our main concern, all in Jimmy, we'll talk about some of the flammability concerns later. But really our initial concern is going to be with that asphyxiation and essentially keeping an eye on that oxygen sensor and making sure that it does not deviate too far downward, keeping in mind that it alarms at 19.5%. But any deviation or any displacement of oxygen, even if the alarm is not going off, is caused for concern because it means there's a significant amount of gas displacing that oxygen. So SCBA for us, primary search for the occupants, and evacuation of the affected areas, would be my main concern. Great, all good points and everything. And like you said, that teamwork between the fire department and the building staff, the subject matter experts, is very key and important. For our listeners, if you weren't aware, like Dan referred to the Ultea, that's a multimeter guest detected that we carry. A lot of other departments may use a different model. But again, like Dan says, it has that most important sensor in there for us, combustibility, and also the oxygen. Those are the key metering capabilities that we want to. Jim, can you explain a little bit the correlation between the refrigerant and the HVAC chiller and related equipment? Sure. So there's four main components within your basic refrigeration loop. The compressor is the heart of the system. The compressor is what moves the refrigerant throughout the loop. That's the hum that you hear when you're by a refrigerator. Then the refrigerant moves on to the condenser. The condenser is what is tied into the cooling tower more or less. Or what's on the outside of a window unit, the heat and the coil on the outside. It's dissipating the heat from the inside. Then that moves on to an expansion device, and then so on to an evaporator. The evaporator is what absorbs the heat from the space, and then the refrigerant moves back onto the compressor. So it's just a constant loop. The refrigerant just keeps going around and around and around absorbing the heat from one space and moving it to another. And that's the main goal of the refrigeration process. Now, one refrigerant doesn't fit all. And the word refrigerant doesn't mean one thing. If you actually look into ash ray, ash ray stands for the American side of heating, refrigeration, and air conditioning engineers. Ash ray states they have 160 refrigerants that are all described by one word refrigerant. Those are also broken down into categories for toxicity and flammability. So you can have a low toxic refrigerant, but it's highly flammable. So once it's all broken down, it's added to the system. Now, over time, some refrigerants have been phased out and new ones have been phased in. And what we're seeing in the industry now is that global warming potential is being looked at. So what they're doing is that they're phasing out high global warming potentials for lower global warming potential refrigerants. And the trade-off of that is the flammability. So us on the fire department side, Now we're having-- to consider the refrigerants and take that into account when we're responding to something. Because when we go to something, the word refrigerant is a blanking statement for many, many different things. Some refrigerants aren't as harmful as other refrigerants, meaning some have a 16 problems, but other have flammability problems. And now going to these things, we really need to start looking at the number rather than just saying the word, hey, we have a refrigeration leak. Because when you go to a refrigeration leak, you could be going to a refrigerant that is R410, that you have to conduct yourself one way, or if you do a little research and find out that the refrigerant within the system is an R290, that's propane, or R600, which is isobutane, or even R717, which is ammonia, you need to dress yourself out differently and conduct yourself differently than you would with other refrigerants. - So basically, these new environmentally friendly refrigerants, this is showing the need what Dan had spoken about before about the importance of carrying that multimeter then. - Correct, that's a big thing carrying that multimeter. Because when we go into a lot of these buildings, you do have one central plant, but now what they do is they put supplemental air in, whereas you'll have other units to help keep up with the heat load of the building, and you'll have in computer rooms, you'll have something called a crack unit, or in other systems, you'll have mini splits, or rooftop units even. So it's not one general configuration for these things. You'll find them in all different types of layouts and places in the building. - Dan, you have something to add to that? - Yeah, I just wanted to get a little more in depth on the meter side, making sure that we understand what we're seeing on the meter. You know, when we talk about the Altair, or your standard, you know, two to four gas meter in the fire service, it's important to understand what it's telling us and what it's not telling us, particularly with the Altair. Pazmat's done a very good job of education, and that's kind of the keep us safe meter. So we're not able to put it up to a HVAC unit, or a refrigerator, and pinpoint where the leak is located. This is more of a meter to carry on us, and make sure that it's just keeping us safe from a potentially toxic or asphyxian or flammable environment. But more importantly, the one gas that Jim hasn't mentioned is methane, because methane is generally not used as a refrigerant. The issue with that is that our Altair's and many multi-gas meters out there are calibrated to the methane gas. And so it's important to understand that while we may get a reading on the combustible gas sensor, it's not going to be accurate to the gas that we're reading. So it's kind of just an indication, hey, there's a flammable gas in the atmosphere, but we cannot use that number as a guide of where we're at in the environment. We would need more specialty metering or mathematics in order to determine that, which is not something for the first two companies to get involved in. If there's a refrigerating company on scene or some building engineers might have a leak detector, that's something that could be utilized in conjunction with the Altair. A leak detector generally does not give a quantitative measurement, but will give us an indication of where the leak is located. But again, it has to be used in conjunction with the Altair or your standard forgas meter that your department uses. Something that you could use, that's very important too, is just your knowledge of the situation. If you walk into a room and there's a haze, well, that haze not supposed to be there. What's going on? You've advanced into the room a little bit more. Of course, with your SCBA on, because it's an unknown. And you notice on your face piece, for example, or your arm, there's a slight oil buildup. But why is that there? What's in this room? The refrigerant. The refrigerant has the oil embedded in it. What you're getting in is the oil cloud and the oil mist of everything. It's a whole big puzzle that you're trying to put together. You're using the meters. You're using your visual cues and just your general knowledge of this. Also, too, if you're walking in a room or in an area, and you see a puddle of oil on the floor. Well, that's not supposed to be there. Look around. Look up. Maybe the air handler is above you. And the line that's broken is above you. The refrigerant leaked out and the oil kind of pulled on the pipe itself and now is dripping down. So that could help you determine where it is. And just walking around, if you see a random ceiling tile that's wet or has oil on it, check behind that ceiling tile. Once you determine where the refrigerant leak is, there is no magic tool that's going to clear the area. Like I said before, the compressor is the harder to system. What you want to do is you want to stop that compressor. You want to remove power to the system. You want to shut it down. Because the longer you leave that going, the more it's just going to push the refrigerant through and it's going to keep pushing out. Whereas if you just stop the compressor, both sides of the system will even out. Stop that compressor. Stop that heart from making the refrigerant flow through the lines. Ventilation is key too. Once you determine that it is a refrigeration leak, there is no magic tool that'll come in and remove all the refrigerant out of the air. What you want to do is you want to get some airflow in there. You want to dilute the area with the outside air to help clear it out. If you're dealing with a flammable refrigerant, keep in mind that even if you're above the flammability range, once you clear that room out, you're going to pass through the explosive limit range of that refrigerant. So you want to take your meter readings, know what you're reading, know how to read them, and keep that in the back of your head when you're clearing out the area. Keep in mind that if you do go to refrigeration fires, some of the byproducts for refrigeration fires are hydrogen fluoride, a phaging gas, hydrofluoric acid, and oxygen deprivation. Frostbite and frost burns are also byproducts of getting refrigerant on your skin. Keep in mind that refrigeration leaks aren't solely to summer months. What they could do is they could put a reversing valve in the system and cause the system to now heat the space, meaning they just change the flow of refrigerant throughout the system. You'll find that in new systems, so keep that in the back of your mind. Oh good points, very slow and steady, and a lot of investigative work on these type of responses. Jim, can you explain a little bit about cooling tower? Sure. So cooling tower is the part of the process where the heat of the space is being dissipated to the outside atmosphere. Meaning if you go to your home central unit, if you have a forced air unit, you'll have your unit outside with a fan blowing over coils. If you put your hand over the fan, you'll feel hot air coming off of that. Same thing with a mini split system. If you go to the outside unit that has the big fan and you put your hand over that, that's the heat of the refrigerant and the inside atmosphere, getting expelled to the outside atmosphere. Well, you can't really do that in a high-rise building. So what they do is they have one of the loops in the system, meaning there's the chilled water loop to get the heat from the space to the refrigerant. Then is the refrigeration loop itself to get the heat out of that water into the outside atmosphere. So the third loop is the cooling tower loop. So what happens is the water will absorb the heat out of the refrigerant. Then that water is sent up to the roof to the cooling tower. That water is sprayed over cells over the area. And then that water is broken up to particulates. That's broken up to give it more surface area to release the heat. Well, that cooling tower itself, you can think of that as a big pool. There's all the problems that you have in a pool with build-up of algae. We've seen in the news, Legionella's. So if someone or a chemical is not there to control that, it does grow out of control. So what they add, they add bio-sides, descaling, a lot of bad chemicals are added to that to keep the growth of algae and other organisms in check. So when you're up there dealing with those things, just keep that in the back of your mind if the water's flying around. You really don't want to hang around that to breathe that chemical in. Now we've seen in the past, this last recent fire, that was in a cooling tower. Cooling tower is just a big metal pool. And there may have been some hot work going on up there that caught some other materials on fire in that cooling tower. Thank you. OK, at this time, I'm going to bring in our additional guest, Ms. Kelly Carr, who's the fire code council for the fire department working in the Bureau fire prevention. Kelly plays a vital role for us here in the department because what she does is seek input from the field and operation units on putting together the code and regulations that the public has to follow. And that input is very important because it works hand in hand when what we do on a daily basis. Kelly, welcome. And could you just give the list as a brief overview of your background? Sure. Thank you for inviting me to join your conversation. Today, Chief Pascachello, I think you and your guests are mindful of how the fire code can impact fire operations and how issues that arise in the field can lead to important changes in the fire code. I came to the fire department as a somewhat seasoned attorney in 2018. I came from litigation background and then had spent about a dozen years doing emergency preparedness at DOH, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene before coming to the fire department. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I know your work has been much applauded by many of us in the department and we thank you so much. At this time, we're going to have you and Jim discuss a little bit about the code revisions and so forth related to these new refrigerants because this is a big issue for us in the department. Like Jim said, in the New York City Fire Department, we're seeing this change in which we are going away from the toxic refrigerants and more towards the environmentally friendly refrigerants. But the trade-off with that is the flammability issue which can impact our operations. Jim, Kelly, could you discuss that a little bit on as far as the code revisions? Kelly, can you explain for our listeners what's the general process for the code revision including these new refrigerants since this was a pretty big lift for the fire department? Sure. Jim, thank you for the question. Let's take a look first at code revision generally and how the process works and then talk about how it relates to A2L refrigerants. You know, so a lot of people know and you know that the New York City Fire Code is predicated upon the model international fire code that's published by the International Code Council. That has been the case since local law 26 of 2008 was enacted which gave us the 2008 fire code. That same local law requires the fire department to periodically review the latest edition of the model international fire code and then make recommendations to the city council of the city of New York about potential amendments to the New York City Fire Code. So the benefit of that is it helps us stay current, right? We can incorporate emerging national fire safety standards and technologies and it also promotes the goal of the original local law which was to increase transparency and promote economic development, right? Because a lot of jurisdictions adopt the same code. So if design professionals can look at the same language, it helps them function more broadly. How long does this usually take? It's typically a multi-year process. It's a cycle and so it never ends. As soon as we publish the latest edition of the New York City Fire Code, the most recent was 2022. We immediately begin looking at the latest edition of the model international fire code. We look at significant changes and other changes, engineers and fire protection inspectors. Ultimately we bring those recommendations to internal technical committees that are stood up to evaluate potential changes. Once we come to a consensus internally, those changes are presented to an advisory committee of external stakeholders, typically building owners and engineers and design professionals and trade associations and unions and other stakeholders. And we do it under the direction of the Fire Commissioner and coordination with the New York City Buildings Department and also the New York City Council. Interesting. Now I understand there's these new refrigerants coming out at A2Ls and there's been a sense of urgency to get this through. Understanding that we don't compromise for safety. What has been your concerns or issues having to deal with these A2L refrigerants? You know the concern was initially flagged for the Code Development Unit by members like yourself. People who have subject matter expertise because in addition to being a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department, you've also been in operating engineer in the New York City environment. Although the fire code is predicated upon the model international code, we also amend that model code to reflect New York City's unique character and the existing fire safety standards and requirements that we have, such as the operating engineer for refrigeration systems. We've done our homework on it and we reached out to many stakeholders on this whole issue. You know Jim once you brought the Code Development Unit up to speed on this emerging issue, it allowed us to become more fully versed in the concerns that fire operations had and also helped us to understand this emerging need for design professionals and also building owners who because of this new landscape are being required to install new systems and use new refrigerants and the implication there is really what is going to be the threshold at which personal supervision by an operating engineer for that system is required under the fire code. And so you know we have this fire code revision cycle but that issue of whether or not an operating engineer will be required to supervise the system to be personally present for that is such an urgent issue to have addressed that the fire department was able to engage stakeholders and better understand where the threshold of refrigerant should be established that would require that personal supervision and you know it really helped us engage stakeholders in a meaningful way and make recommendations to the City Council for where we think the fire code should evolve in terms of supervision of refrigeration systems that use the A2L refrigerants. The mission of the fire department is safety and the purpose of the fire code is to establish the reasonable minimum requirements and standards for life safety and property protection but of course when we're assessing that we do balance it against the needs of in this case building owners engineers and how we're going to ensure that these new systems and the new refrigerant are regulated in a way that keeps building occupants and our members safe in the field. It goes to show a little bit of collaboration between both the code side and the operational side working towards safety. So Kelly you talked about the international fire code can you explain how your office works with the field on soliciting information for the New York fire code? Yes so as I mentioned a lot of the potential changes in the fire code are predicated upon the model international fire code but you know New York City is a uniquely dense urban environment unlike any other. We have a fire department that out resources others by a country mile both in terms of you know what we have but also our knowledge and so the co-development unit will rely upon the expertise of our members to help us think about ways to improve the fire code. So as an example I think it was in 2017 or so there was a mega high rise committee which consisted of many high ranking chiefs in the department which I believe included you as well at the time who examined you know we see these over 800 foot mega high rises coming into New York City more and more what is unique about them and how do we want to prepare for this new landscape and so there was a series of recommendations set forth by that committee virtually all of which were incorporated into the 2022 fire code. So in the upcoming code cycle we'll be reaching out to members in fire operations fire prevention and others within the department to share with us their suggestions about potential changes to the fire code because they're the ones who are best positioned to observe emerging issues and offer suggestions about how to address them and we stand up at least to technical committees each code cycle. General fire safety is the bulk of what we examine but we also have a fire operations technical committee. It's internal subject matter experts. We draw heavily from interested members in operation to participate in the committee and to evaluate recommendations and to help us determine whether or not we support the proposed change and move it to the next phase to be considered by the advisory committee. That's great information I always say good co-sleet to good fire operations. At this time I'd like to remind all our listeners that all of our guests today will be participating in this year's 2026 FDNY high-rise symposium that will occur over a three day period from October 23rd through October 25th. Day one presentations will be at the Javits Convention Center this year. I will ask my three coordinators with me to explain each day's event. Chris can you explain day one? Sure day one will be breakout presentations at the Javits Center relating to high-rise topics. We're going to stick with the same theme that we did last year of communication transportation and water and then break it down into further subtopics from there. So from some feedback from last year's symposium was that we had 28 breakout sessions that were all 60 minutes long and the attendees wanted some longer sessions and they had a hard time getting to all of them since there was competing presentations at the same time. So we had originally planned to do 16 sessions this year but when we mapped that out we weren't even hitting some of the core topics that we wanted to make sure we hit. So we went back up to 24 presentations we're going to have this year and they're all going to be mostly going to be 90 minutes apiece. The one session right after lunch will just be an hour. We're going to hit the topics of buildings under construction, high-rise fire case studies, utility emergencies, hotel fire safety, high-rise on the sea, cruise ship fires, human performance, mass timber, command and control, battery energy storage systems, transportation hubs, the role of the Fire and Life Safety Director, terrorism, fire prevention presentations, and the presentation about the rescue medics role in high-rise firefighting. Awesome sounds great and Kelly will be there again this year in that line up on day one. Jim can you explain the day two for us. Sure, day two will be at the Javid Center in Hudson Yards, along with the Javid Center itself. We'll be getting behind the scene tours of their mechanical features dealing with fire operations, elevators, fire pumps, things along that line. Also, energy storage will be something showcase this year. Also, on the conclusion of day two, we'll be returning to the Javid Center for a roundtable discussion. We'll have access to all the subject matter experts and everyone that you've met along the way of day two. So, you'll be free to interact and engage those people as well. That's great. Last year's was very successful. And, Dan, can you explain what's going to happen on day three? Yeah, so day three, we're going to change it up a little bit from last year based on some of the feedback that we received. We're going to have a tour of the Rock Randall's Island, which will be an optional for all attendees to come to. Then, we're going to have a presentation on the first two, basically, all hands, residential or commercial, high-rise fire. And then, we're going to have breakout sessions this year. So, when you register, you'll be able to choose various topics that you want to concentrate on. Some of those topics are command and control, wind-impacted fires, green energy, mental performance, a show for training school, an engine track, a truck track, roof rope track, elevator track, and a sock track, special operations command. So, it should be a good year. We're excited for it. It should be a great time, great event. We look forward to seeing all of you out there at that high-rise symposium. I want to thank all of my guests today for participating in today's podcast. Thanks for having us, Chief. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having us. And I want to thank you for listening to today's episode of the FDNY Pro podcast. 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