NSW Product Lifecycle Responsibility Act 2025
The Product Lifecycle Responsibility Act 2025 (NSW) imposes new environmental obligations on all products supplied in NSW, including fire protection equipment. Brand owners must implement stewardship plans, report annually, and support circular economy principles. Fire industry professionals must adapt practices to meet these requirements and support sustainable compliance.
Bushfire or Wildfire detection using Home Assistant
Exploring bushfire detection beyond standard systems, this article investigates using the open-source Home Assistant IoT platform for inexpensive ember attack sensing. Leveraging publicly available weather and alert data, combined with affordable IoT sensors (temperature, humidity, particulates), and integrating with outputs for notifications or actions, a rudimentary early warning system can be built by enthusiasts.
Check & test your smoke alarms
A smoke alarm is a vital warning device, necessary in homes to warn people in the event of smoke and fire. It is generally agreed to test your smoke alarm monthly with particular focus when daylight savings changes two times (Daylight saving time begins on the first Sunday in October and again the first Sunday in April). Despite this reminder, there are many smoke alarms that are not working, placing people and property at risk of fire.
VBA Supports Research to Improve Passive Fire Protection in Apartment Buildings
The Victorian Building Authority, a statutory government body responsible for the application of building legislation in Victoria has backed research by Deakin University that reveals widespread passive fire protection defects in Victorian apartments, prompting calls for increased practitioner education, licensing, and improved construction practices to enhance building safety.
Reporting a discharge of a scheduled substance
According to the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989 a scheduled substance includes a range of products that have been identified as ozone depleting or a synthetic greenhouse gas as listed in Schedule 1 (of the Act). Where a scheduled substance is discharged into the environment, Section 45B of the Act calls for the discharged to be reported.
CoVID-19 Vaccinations
Medical professionals have stated that one of the ways we can reduce the spread of CoVID-19 is to get vaccinated. At Firewize we are doing our part by encouraging our team to get vaccinated.
Oxfam Trailwalker October 8-10, 2021
Oxfam International is a confederation of 20 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty. In Australia every year, the Oxfam Trailwalker event is held in Melbourne and Sydney to raise awareness and money to help Oxfam fulfil their vision to tackle inequality and eliminate poverty.
Smoke Detector vs Smoke Alarm
Depending where you are in the world, the terms smoke detector and smoke alarm have different meanings. Google Trends offers an interesting insight into what the public search for and illustrates the difference within various countries.
Why capacity or weight is a 💩 measure of fire extinguisher performance and value!
The weight of a portable fire extinguisher is terrible measure of the value of a portable fire extinguisher. To address, this, Firewize have conducted a an industry leading visual performance rating scheme (like a star rating) that has been modeled on similar schemes for nutrition, health and energy efficiency.
What is a fire sprinkler head shield or baffle plate?
A fire sprinkler head shield or baffle plate ("baffle") is a device (typically made of sheet metal) that is used to prevent the first operating sprinkler from wetting (and cooling) the lower or adjacent fire sprinkler heads.
