Episode 45 of the Fire Safety Matters Podcast features two exclusive interviews. Brian hears from Darren Ellis, qualifications manager at FireQual, and Stephen Marsh (head of sales at wireless fire detection and alarm systems manufacturer Cygnus). Darren focuses his attentions on FireQual as an organisation, the importance of competence in the sector and qualifications for fire risk assessors, while Stephen explains why school holidays are an ideal time for education sector trusts and academies alike to evaluate their fire detection and alarm systems. In addition, Brian and Mark review the latest fire sector news.Subjects covered include the most recent set of statistics on building safety remediation issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and an e-Learning programme on fire safety introduced for high-rise building managers. There’s also detail on the news that Warringtonfire has just invested circa £4 million on two furnaces designed to increase the testing capacity at its Birchwood Park facility and an overview of BS 8674 (the recently published British Standard for fire risk assessors).