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A History of Fire Prevention Codes and Fire Safety Plans
Fire codes began as a response to what went wrong in fires. Many of the
early fire safety regulations were drafted by insurance companies in
response to fires that burned large areas of wood constructed cities.
However, the insurance companies were trying to protect themselves from
paying money out so many of their requirements were concerned with
property protection not life safety.
In 1912, in the United States, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
began publishing pamphlets on exiting following a series of tragic fires
with large life loss. These pamphlets led to the development of NFPA’s
“Building Exits Code” in 1927.
Until the 1970's code enforcement was a patchwork of fire codes primarily
enacted in larger communities and insurance company regulations. But with
the development, adoption, and enforcement of national fire codes, fire
losses and deaths dropped dramatically. The effectiveness of codes, code
enforcement and fire inspections can be seen by comparing statistics for a
country such as the United States with
3,993 fire related deaths in 2004¹, and Russia, a country with a poor record of
inspection and enforcement, which suffered more than 18,000
fire related deaths in 2004.²
The purpose of modern fire codes is to both minimize fire spread and
decrease life loss. There are three types of prevention strategies.
Primary prevention strategies are those that deal with preventing an
incident from happening. This involves ignition control, such as keeping
kids from playing with matches, candle fire safety, not smoking in bed,
electrical safety, or safe storage of combustibles.
Secondary prevention strategies try to minimize the damage once a fire
starts. For example installing things such as smoke alarms, exit features,
emergency lighting and fire alarm systems decrease injury. Fire-rated
separation walls, fire doors, sprinkler systems, extinguishers and
suppression systems minimize fire spread. Most fire code regulations have
to do with secondary prevention.
Tertiary prevention strategies enhance response capabilities. Things such
as fire vehicle lanes, fire hydrants, firefighting water supplies, premise
identification, and hazard markings increase responders' effectiveness.
A fire safety plan incorporates all three levels of prevention in a fire
prevention strategy specific to your site.
Footnotes:
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