Joe Chacon, PE
sr. fire protection engineer
Joe Chacon wears many hats in the world of fire protection. In addition to being a professional fire protection engineer (FPE), he is also a firefighter, HazMat technician for the city of Henderson, NV, and inventor of the TheHazMatApp.
In his role as a fire protection engineer, Joe provides building/fire code consulting services, plan review, hazardous materials consulting, hazard analysis and risk assessments, and design and testing of fire protection and life safety systems. As far as his firefighting duties are concerned, Joe has experience conducting pre-plans, school drills, and hazard evaluations.
Joe’s responsibilities as a HazMat technician include responding to spills or potential releases of hazardous substances. Joe’s expertise in the hazmat arena is renowned, resulting in his teaching building and fire code courses at the Alliance of Hazardous Materials Professionals 2022 National Conference and the 18th Annual Fire Protection & Life Safety Forum. Additionally, his article “Evaluation of Chemical Hazards and Associated Hazard Classifications: What Do the Model Codes Say” was published in the July 2020 edition of SFPE’s FPE eXTRA as well his article “Hazmat Response and the Fire Codes” was published in the November 2020 edition of Fire Engineering magazine.
Seeing a need for a more efficient way to organize and document the storage and use of hazardous materials, Joe invented the TheHazMatApp. Joe drew on his extensive expertise in the hazardous materials arena to create TheHazMatApp which helps users ensure their storage, use, and handling of hazardous materials, including flammable liquids and combustible dusts, meets all required code standards. Its applications also include the development of a Hazardous Material Inventory Statement (HMIS) for assisting users in the development of an overall fire protection system strategy incorporating active and passive fire protection methods to account for all hazardous materials on-site, and specifications to bring buildings into code compliance.
Joe was the founder of FLS Engineering, which was in operation from 2008 to 2018. In 2018, TERPconsulting and FLS Engineering merged into one company. Joe began his engineering career in 2001 in the Las Vegas office of Schirmer Engineering (which became Aon Fire Protection Engineering and was later acquired by Jensen Hughes).
A registered professional fire protection engineer in seven states, Joe is a principal member of National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1620 — Standard on Pre-Incident Planning and serves as an alternate on NFPA 420 — Standard on Fire Protection of Cannabis Growing and Processing Facilities. He has a master’s degree in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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