NFPA Journal - May/June 2020 - 69

"I think much of the public has this
expectation that when they walk into
a high-rise building, it's going to be
sprinklered-most people outside of
our industry don't spend a lot of time
looking up at the ceiling to see if there
actually are sprinklers," Ziavras said.
"This is one way that the committee
can drive home the idea that sprinklers are important and that the public
should be made aware if sprinklers are
not there. It also alerts first responders
that the building isn't sprinklered."
Prohibition of consumer fireworks
Although NFPA has long advocated
against the public use of consumer fireworks, that sentiment isn't specifically
expressed in any document. The NFPA
1 committee decided to change that this
cycle with one short line of text in Chapter 65: "The use of consumer fireworks
by the public shall be prohibited."
"As most people know, NFPA's stance
is that fireworks should only be used
by trained professionals," Ziavras said.
"The committee decided it would put
that into writing."
The proposed revision is controversial and must be approved by the NFPA
Standards Council before it is included
in the final 2021 edition of NFPA 1.
-Jesse Roman

NFPA 3000
nfpa.org/3000next

In May 2018, NFPA published only
the second provisional standard in
its 120-plus year history: NFPA 3000
(PS), Standard for an Active Shooter/
Hostile Event Response (ASHER) Program. (The provisional tag indicates
that approved alternative methods for
standards development were utilized
to get the information out faster.) It is
the first standard to offer comprehensive guidance to responders and local
governments on how to collaboratively
prepare for and respond to the types of
mass shooting attacks and other hostile
actions that have plagued communities
across the United States.
In July, after its first full revision
cycle, an updated version of NFPA

3000 will be published, and the "provisional" distinction will be dropped. The
updated document remains very close
to the original, said John Montes, the
NFPA 3000 staff liaison. "The committee reworded a lot of things to make
it clearer, but they didn't change the
intent or the requirements," he said. "I
think they found a good starting place

" I think much of
the public has this
ex pectation that when
they walk into a highris e building, it 's going
to be s prink lered-
most people outside
of our industr y
don' t s pend a lot of
time look ing up at the
ceiling to s ee if
there actually are
s prink lers ."
for it and they didn't feel comfortable
adding lots of new things or changing
it too much just two years in."
The updated document does include
a new annex section, which is not
mandatory, that offers guidance on
how to create an after-action report.
The updated standard also provides
additional guidance on the difference
between a "drill" and an "exercise," with
the former involving building occupants,
such as students, and the latter being
geared toward emergency responders
and those involved with higher-level
planning, such as hospital administrators. NFPA 3000 focuses on exercises,
and the updated version provides additional guidance on how to conduct them
and who should participate.
The biggest changes to the terminology in the document are in Chapter 20,
which deals with incident recovery. The
first version of the standard called for
the creation of a "reunification center"
shortly after an incident, where family
and friends could go for information on
the status of loved ones. The problem
with calling it a reunification center,
though, is that "there are people in
these incidents who are not going to be

reunified with anyone-they're going
to be notified of a death," Montes said.
To avoid creating false expectations, the
committee decide to change the name to
"notification center," which also aligns
with subsequent changes that have
occurred to federal guidance on the issue.
In the 24 hours after an incident,
NFPA 3000 says that the notification
center should transition into a "family
assistance center"-a place where loved
ones can sign up for various services to
aid their recovery. In the updated version of NFPA 3000, the word "family"
has been replaced with the incident
name, allowing communities to name
the center whatever is appropriate (e.g.,
the Sandy Hook Assistance Center, or
the Route 91 Assistance Center). This
change is small but important, Montes
said. "We've learned from several incidents, including the Pulse Nightclub,
that many people in the community
consider themselves loved ones and
family to the direct victims, but because
they weren't blood relatives, they didn't
think they could access resources, and
that's factually inaccurate," Montes
said. "In NFPA 3000, we define victims
as people who are directly and indirectly affected by the incidents, so those
people do have access to resources.
That's why the committee decided to
remove the term 'family.'"
The updated NFPA 3000 has received
no NITMAMs and is expected to be
published as a consent document this
summer.
-Jesse Roman

NFPA 101
nfpa.org/101next

For a document as large and comprehensive as NFPA 101, Life Safety Code,
it's not uncommon for the public to
weigh in with hundreds of suggested
revisions-but not all of those inputs
make it in after both draft revisions.
For the 2021 edition, however, many
of the suggestions did. "We had somewhere in the order of 300 technical
substantive changes from the 2018
edition of the code," said NFPA 101 staff
liaison Gregory Harrington.
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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