DSS101: The Evolution of Fire Rover’s Waste and Recycling Fire Elimination Solution with Ryan Fogelman

In this episode of the Dust Safety Science podcast, we have a return guest. Ryan Fogelman, VP of Fire Elimination Solutions at Fire Rover appeared in Episode #14 to talk about fire hazards in recycling waste facilities. Today, he explains how Fire Rover’s waste and recycling fire elimination solution can improve safety at these sites.

In recent years, the waste and recycling industry has been forced to start looking at their fire planning and disaster prevention plans. Last year, one of the major CEOs at Waste Expo told Ryan that he had had one transfer station fire a day every day for an entire month.

“We’re helping a lot of the major waste and recycling companies, but they really have cleaned up their act,” Ryan noted. “I’m pretty proud of the industry and where we are at this point because everybody is talking about it and sharing best practices. A lot of our videos are used for those best practices and sharing within the industry. It’s been a pretty cool evolution of the industry and the fire problem that we were seeing in the industry.”

Fire Rover is focusing on enabling early detection by using thermal cameras, heat imaging, smoke analytics and all the different things that can bring a fire to the system’s attention. The company recently installed cameras and nozzles at a waste to energy facility as a furnace protection management measure.

“We’re taking the existing fire suppression system, the existing pumps. It’s a dry system,” Ryan stated. “We’re putting nozzles and cameras. We’re able to control those from the control room as well as backup with our existing system. So, there are a lot of things that are pretty exciting.”

The system is software-driven, but there is still a human element. Being in active locations, the cameras pick up activities that aren’t fire-related, such as forklifts driving by. Although the software mutes some of them, a human operator based in a UL-certified facility clears these false alarms as an extra precaution. If they do see a fire incident, they communicate it immediately and shoot an environmentally-friendly wetting agent at the heat source.

“We had an incident that’s on the Fire Rover YouTube page that happened at one of our (client facilities) in California,” Ryan said. “(It) looked like a massive fire. If it wasn’t for us, the facility would have been down.”

He acknowledged that catastrophic losses can still happen.

“We’re not 100% guaranteeing that there’s never ever going to be a fire. (With one incident), our client had 25-foot piles in a 30-foot building. We had sent them emails every day saying, “Guys, we don’t have line of sight. We need line of sight.” This isn’t a one-size-fits all throw it in and all of a sudden, you’re never going to have a fire again. There’s still work, and there’s training, and there’s all these things that go with it. But at the end of the day, we’ve seriously curved the amount of catastrophic losses in our customers compared to someone who doesn’t have our system.”

After a manifold was added, Fire Rover’s system won the Recycling Equipment Innovator Award from the National Waste and Recycling Association. It can now shoot for eight to 12 minutes straight and once the fire department connects from the outside, the system can use its pressure to shoot for the 40 minutes required for sprinklers. From a performance perspective, the Fire Rover unit can replace sprinkler systems in these types of occupancies.

Conclusion

According to Ryan, Fire Rover will continue to progress and evolve with its systems.

“We were written into the performance code for in one NFPA standard. We’re also going down the path of FM approval. We didn’t have FM approval, and people always asked why. It was because they didn’t have a test for us. So now, they’ve put us into a smart monitor definition, and that’s what our solution will be.”

If you would like to discuss further, leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach Ryan Fogelman directly:

Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjayfogelman/
Tel: 614-327-3744

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.