NFPA Journal - Spring 2022 - 41

2015
The Foundation receives its first Assistance to
Firefighters Grant to address cleaning validation
of firefighter personal protective equipment, a
critical issue in fire service health and safety. Additional
grants to continue this work are received
in 2018 and 2021. Findings provide extensive
input and comments to the technical committee
responsible for NFPA 1851, Standard on Selection,
Care, and Maintenance of Protective Ensembles for
Structural Fire Fighting and Proximity Fire Fighting.
The work is part of the Foundation's involvement
in firefighter health and safety research, including
" Campaign for Fire Service Contamination
Control " and by partnering on critical activities
including a firefighter cancer cohort study.
through full-scale testing was used to
inform NFPA's alternative fuel vehicle
safety training for emergency responders,
which has reached more than
250,000 first and second responders
around the world.
Similar collaborations have resulted
in advancements to home fire safety, a
critical area for reducing the nation's
fire deaths and injuries. A recent NFPA
report, " Smoke Alarms in US Home
Fires, " found that almost three out of
five home fire deaths were caused by
fires in properties with no smoke alarms.
Further, the data shows that the death
rate per 1,000 home structure fires is 55
percent lower in homes with working
2021
The Energy Storage Research Consortium
is founded to provide stakeholders
in the energy-storage industry with a
forum to discuss emerging challenges
and identify research needs, and to
have a funding mechanism to support
battery research. The consortium is
designed to strategically identify and
deliver credible and publicly available
research and data on the hazards
associated with various battery and
energy-storage technologies, information
that can inform the development
of research-based regulations and
procedures.
smoke alarms than in homes with no
alarms or alarms that fail to operate.
Clearly, the presence of working smoke
alarms is a critical piece of the safety
equation.
So is the effectiveness of those alarms.
An important factor in residential fire
risk is the contents of modern homes,
especially furniture. Residential furnishings
have changed significantly over
time, and the foams and other synthetic
materials used in new-generation furniture
result in a much greater hazard
than the furnishings of 40 years ago.
An interior home fire that once took
more than 20 minutes to reach flashover
can now attain the same conditions in
2022
In January, FPRF publishes the proceedings
from a project workshop on
" Firefighting Foams: Fire Service Roadmap. "
The project, funded by a 2020
Assistance to Firefighters Grant, was
designed to develop a strategic road map
and guidance for the fire service during
the transition from fluorinated firefighting
foam to more environmentally friendly
alternatives. The project aims to enhance
firefighter safety and health by developing
best-practice recommendations for
firefighting foam operations and handling.
A final report is anticipated in April 2022.
under four minutes. With escape times
so limited, smoke alarm performance is
critical.
With this urgency in mind, in 2004
RESEARCH PRESENT A number of recent Fire Protection Research Foundation efforts
have focused on safety issues surrounding the rapidly expanding field of energy storage,
from electric vehicles to this utility-scale energy storage system facility in California.
GETTY IMAGES
the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) conducted a study,
" Performance of Home Smoke Alarms:
Analysis of the Response of Several
Available Technologies in Residential
Fire Settings. " The project demonstrated
that, while the smoke alarms worked,
there was less available safe egress time
compared to a study from the 1970s
conducted with older-style furniture.
The NIST study also concluded that the
performance of smoke alarms could
be more effectively evaluated if there
were better data on combustibility and
smoke characteristics. The Foundation
undertook a smoke alarm characterization
project to collect data, which it
made available to the public, on current
products used in residential settings.
That work led to new listing tests in UL
217, Standard for Smoke Alarms, and
UL 268, Standard for Smoke Detector
Systems.
In 2007, a project was conducted
through a collaboration with Underwriters
Laboratories (UL) and industry
stakeholders to investigate a range of
products and chemistries commonly
found in today's residential settings. The
goal was to characterize the products
of flaming and non-flaming combustion
more fully to inform the needs
of smoke-sensing technology for the
contents of modern residences. The
results from this project and subsequent
research led to the current requirements
in UL 217 and UL 268.
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