History of The Fire Panel

Welcome to The Fire Panel: the industry leader in media coverage of life safety and emergency preparedness! We specialize in producing content that integrates historical context with changes in life safety technology.

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The Fire Panel originally began as "The Schumin Web Community" in 2002, run by its founder Ben Schumin. It was one of the first online discussion boards that discussed fire alarms and many related topics. By late 2006, the board had grown in excess of 560 members.

In 2012, Andrew Davis, also known as NewAgeServer, took ownership of The Schumin Web and rebranded it as "The Fire Panel Forums." This board continued to grow over the next eight years until the domain was up for renewal.

When thefirepanel.com became available in April of 2020, content creator Zachary Fleck purchased the domain and began the transition to our current company-owned board.

In January of 2021, The Fire Panel, LLC was founded by Zach, Katy, Robert, and Johann, the general partners of the company and our focus transitioned from the site simply acting as a forum board. Now building an exclusive collaboration channel on YouTube, forming professional relationships with industry professionals, and contributing to the betterment of the enthusiast life safety community, The Fire Panel positions itself as the industry leader in facilitating life safety and fire protection discussions.

The forums have now transitioned to the Discourse forum software, allowing an expansive list of features for users to take advantage of and bringing the discussion format into the 2020s. Development continues to make The Fire Panel the premiere platform for professional life safety discussions.