Fire chiefs, IAPMO join the effort.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has announced that the Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) and the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) have joined forces with NFPA in the development of its Consensus Codes^TM set - a full set of codes for the built environment. The codes, NFPA reported, will be developed through open consensus among the three code organizations.

As part of the Consensus Codes project, NFPA is developing the NFPA Building Code^TM. A draft of that document will be made available on the NFPA Building Code Web site at www.buildingcode.nfpa.org.

For their part, IAPMO and NFPA are partnering to develop plumbing and mechanical codes under American National Standards Institute (ANSI) guidelines. IAPMO has begun updating the Uniform Plumbing Code and the Uniform Mechanical Code process to incorporate consensus. In November 2000, a formal call for proposals will be issued by IAPMO, and all interested parties are invited to participate as these two codes are updated for publication in 2003.

WFCA will join NFPA to develop a fire code that integrates NFPA 1, Fire Prevention Code, and the Uniform Fire Code - the two most widely adopted fire codes in the United States. The code is expected to be ANSI-compliant and should be completed for publication in 2003, NFPA reported.

Links

• NFPA Building Code Web site