NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 36

Valerie Boutin, a fire protection engineer at NFPA,
on the increasing popularity of green vegetative
roofs and how the latest edition of NFPA 5000,
Building Construction and Safety Code, addresses
these new building features:
While vegetative roofs have numerous benefits, it's important that they are installed and maintained properly
to avoid fire and life safety hazards.
The 2018 edition of NFPA 5000 has new material in
Chapter 38 (38.9.15) addressing three major concerns
of vegetative roofs: the potential fire risk, the additional
load on the roof, and the risk of flying debris.
Designers must choose vegetation that will thrive in
the given climate, evaluate the additional weight loads,
choose an appropriately sized growth media (or soil),

and consider how the vegetation will be watered. The
mitigation of fire and life safety risks needs to continue
throughout the building's life by ensuring that the vegetative roof is maintained properly with sufficient water
and that dead vegetation is promptly removed. All of
these points are addressed in the new chapter.

Read more
on these and
other topics
at community.
nfpa.org

NFPA President Jim Pauley on the dangerous
trend of jurisdictions weakening safety codes and
standards during the adoption process:
Last week, The Wall Street Journal featured an indepth article on the Grenfell Tower fire and the exterior
wall panels that escalated the fire's devastating spread.
According to the article, "the more recent use of
combustible-core panels to cover multistory buildings
has created a hidden danger to legions of workers,

36 | NFPA JOURNAL * J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

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students, hospital patients and hotel guests inside the
structures. A loosening of the model U.S. building code
could make matters worse." The article noted that the
ICC building code was relaxed in 2009 to allow broader use of a particular type of exterior wall covering on
high-rise structures.
Unfortunately, this code change is no outlier. It
reflects a broader undercurrent toward more relaxed
codes and standards, and it's a trend that can jeopardize public safety.
In addition to proposed modifications that allow
less vigorous codes and standards, we've increasingly
witnessed states and jurisdictions removing important
safety related provisions of codes because they don't
understand the extensive process that was used to
arrive at the requirement. In effect, we have seen local
amendment processes change from their original
intent of ensuring appropriate administration of the
requirements into a process where the main focus is
on reducing the minimum safety requirements due
to cost or outside influence. In fact, in the past, unlike
today, jurisdictions that revised technical requirements
did so almost exclusively to improve, not reduce, the
level of safety included in their codes.
While I realize an argument for these actions around
codes and standards is often cost, the reality is codes
developed through the consensus process already
represent the minimum level of safety. Weakening
codes not only means jurisdictions miss out on the
best knowledge available from research, collective
wisdom and past learnings, but they compromise
public safety.
NFPA engineer Kristin Bigda on some of the key
changes to the new 2018 edition of NFPA 1, Fire
Code, from her "Fire Code Friday" blog:
NFPA 1, like a majority of NFPA codes and standards, is
revised on a three-year revision cycle. The 2018 edition
was finished over the summer and became official
early this fall, with an effective date of September 6.
Many changes were included in the new edition to
address new technologies, industry challenges, and
firefighter safety. The 2018 edition includes updates to
referenced publications in Chapter 2, new definitions in
Chapter 3, and hundreds of revisions to the code sections. Technical changes to the 2018 edition of NFPA 1
include, but are not limited to, the following:
» A new Chapter 38 provides fire safety requirements
for marijuana growing, processing and extraction
facilities.
» A new 50.7 addresses mobile and temporary cooking
equipment. Food trucks are included in its application.
» A complete rewrite of Chapter 52 to reflect new and
current technologies for energy storage systems.
» A new Chapter 55 on cleaning and purging of
flammable gas piping systems, which mandates
reference to NFPA 56, Fire and Explosion Prevention
During Cleaning and Purging of Flammable Gas
Piping Systems.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - January/February 2018