NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 35

" We are at a pivotal point

in our ability to greatly
impact safety worldwide. "
-Jim Pauley,
NFPA President and CEO

ON THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 26, shortly
before 2 a.m., firefighters in the town of Natick,
Massachusetts, outside of Boston, responded to
a 911 call of a house fire. When they arrived, the
single-family home on Longfellow Road was fully
involved, with flames billowing from the rapidly
disintegrating structure. Two people had been in
the home: a woman in her 50s, who escaped, and
a man in his 70s, who had not. He was found at
the rear of the home on the first floor, and was
pronounced dead at the scene.
The victim was Joel David Cope, 74, who had
taught at Harvard Law School in nearby Cambridge
for more than 20 years. Harvard Law Today, an
online news site for the school, described Cope
as " a brilliant intellect and devoted, compassionate teacher, " noting his broad range of scholarly
interests and his talent as an actor, musician, and
composer. His wife, who survived the fire, remembered him as " a Renaissance man in the truest
sense, and the most generous soul I've ever met. "
Cope's story underscores the purpose and ambition of the National Fire Protection Association and
its 125-year history, which has been to eliminate the
loss of life and property as a result of fire, electrical, and life safety hazards. NFPA published its first
standard in 1896-NFPA 13, Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems, which was designed
to standardize the size of piping and the spacing
of sprinklers used in commercial and industrial
properties within a 100-mile radius of Boston. Since
then, NFPA has sought to combat myth, misinformation, and the sheer absence of information with
evidence-based codes and standards, advocacy, education, and research. Even so, myths persist, such as
the perception that newer homes don't burn. The
home where Cope and his wife lived was less than
two years old.

In that way, the fate of Joel David Cope also highlights new and ongoing global challenges faced by
the organization. The home fire problem, for example, continues to be an intractable foe, driven in
part by the hazards contained in newer homes and
by a troubling complacency on the part of the public
when it comes to understanding and minimizing
those risks. The growing frequency and destructive
power of wildfires around the world is a chief concern, as are the global fire and life safety hazards
associated with emerging technologies. And in this
anniversary year, NFPA faces perhaps its biggest
test of all: a legal challenge that threatens the codes
and standards process itself.
An early realization by NFPA's founders was that
for every achievement, new challenges emerge-a
maxim that has remained unchanged for 125 years.
As it has done many times throughout its history,
though, NFPA can draw on its reserves of expertise,
flexibility, and creativity to address these challenges.
It can seek the counsel of like-minded professionals
around the world to develop a bigger-picture view of
possible solutions. And it can mine its own rich history for what has worked so well in the past: bringing
stakeholders together to create a shared assessment
of a threat and a shared vision of how to approach it,
a process that is locked into the organization's DNA.
" We are at a pivotal point in our ability to greatly
impact safety worldwide, " said Jim Pauley, NFPA's
president and CEO. " We are becoming increasingly
digital and increasingly global to address a range
of challenges, from underdeveloped countries that
lack basic infrastructure for codes and standards
to nations that are experiencing tremendous building and infrastructure growth amidst technological
progress. We are ideally positioned to understand
and define those challenges, and we are ideally positioned to help. " 

N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

125th Anniversary_Summer 2021 DCS to ADA as R1.indd 35

| 35

4/30/21 5:04 PM

https://nfpa.org/journal

NFPA Journal - Summer 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Summer 2021