The Fire Protection Podcast: Episode #75 – Understanding the Code Process in Fire Protection with Jason Webb

t. And what brought me or drew me into that role at NFSA is it was my background as an AHJ, and for some reason I was kind of that AHJ that was attracted to the ITM piece of what we do.  

Jason: And I think you and I have talked about this, there's so many more existing systems than there are new ones. And I used to say that all the time when I teach this topic, we put as an A HGA, I had a realization one day I was putting 80 90% of my energy into new construction, and rightly so. I mean, it's critical. It has to be done right to begin with. But then it dawned on me, I had what a dozen new systems a year and 1100 existing systems that I needed, and just the math work down. I need to focus more personally on developing an ITM program in my jurisdiction. And then that got me into, oh my gosh, how in the heck did they come up with an FD 25 and what can I do to fix it?  

Jason: Yeah. So that's how I ended up in the industry side. I said, I want to work on this topic. And then as after a few years of that, I went to Potter, was looking for someone to kind of do the same thing with them and the technology that they're introducing into this world. So I worked full-time for them for five or six years. And then as you mentioned here, about six months ago, my role changed to one of a contractor. I wanted to go a little different route. They were very supportive. And so it worked out great for both of us. I get to travel and teach.  

Drew: That's great.  

Jason: More of what I want to do. And then I still as a contractor, represent them on a bunch of different technical committees and help with strategy and things.  

Drew: Well, you're definitely traveling. I see a palm tree or something in the background there. It's 25 degrees here in the northeast.  

Jason: Well, I wish I could say it was a lot warmer. I'm in the panhandle of Florida this week and in my Airstream, this is one of those things I wanted to a little more time in this and a little less time in the airplane. But yeah, it was about 35 here this morning.  

Drew: Oh boy.  

Jason: Yeah, it's quite a shock for some of these people, but it's better than the 10 inches of snow and ice in Kansas City that I understand is on the ground.  

Drew: It'll be 30 degrees warmer in a couple days, I'm sure.  

Jason: Yeah. Yep. Won't take long here.  

Drew: So what are you doing with the training and that is it for technicians? For AHJs?  

Jason: Yeah, all the above. I'm a contract instructor for NFSA. I do a lot of things with them. I actually chair nfsa training and education Committee for their board of directors. So we're kind of taking a look from a strategic level at the industry training in general, and then how part of that strategy is how to involve more, I guess you'd call 'em subject matter expert types, and just trying to raise the bar on training across the entire industry. Yeah, I mean, personally, I've got kind that role with one hat and then turned my head around. And I teach a lot as well, a lot of primarily ITM and industry affairs type, how to be involved, how to influence the code process, ironically what we're talking about today, but a lot of those kind of topics.  

Drew: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's great. It's good to see you're doing what you want and still heavily involved. And I definitely wanted Yan here to pick your brain on. You've been integral through the whole process, obviously with NFSA and even Potter even before that with of how codes work, how our fire codes work, both locally in the US you mainly want to talk about US North America and that relative to NFPA, but even beyond that and how that whole cycle works. So I guess best as you can explain it in layman's terms, how does the whole cycle work? Why are certain states and jurisdictions different than others, and how does that whole process kind of start and end?  

Jason: Yeah, man. So it was what we have about six hours here to kind of go through the whole process. So there's really two different processes. There's two different, what we call model code bodies in the us you got the ICC International Code Council, and that's who publishes the International Building and Fire codes that are adopted by I would say the majority of jurisdictions. And so it kind of starts at that code adoption level. And then you've got of course, NFPA, which also produces a building in fire code. And some states, Massachusetts, Florida, there's a handful of states that adopt those building and fire codes as well. But then NFPA produces, of course, the majority of the standards that our industry works under and with and water based, of course, we're talking about 13 and 14 and 20 and 25, and then 72 on the fire alarm side. So all those are published and developed by NFPA. So there's those two kind of almost parallel tracks. One compliments the other and vice versa. But the key, I think, to your point about how it ends up being enforced on the street, is the vast majority of the things that we deal with in our industry that those standard, those individual tasks and frequencies and things that come out of the standards, all that gets referenced out of the fire code, it starts at that code adoption level. And there's exceptions to everything we're going to talk about. Some jurisdictions do it slightly differently, but at a high level, you get typically the jurisdiction adopts the fire code, the building code. That's kind of the win. And where piece. So that's that high level. When you have a building that's this big and this tall and used for this purpose, it has to have a sprinkler system. But the building and fire code doesn't tell you how to install a sprinkler system. It just says you have to have a sprinkler system installed in accordance with an FP 13. So that is called a reference. It references in NFPA 13 in that case. So it starts at that building and fire code level and then worked its way down to those individual rules and tasks and frequency and spacing and all the details that are in those standards.  

Drew: Does that high level give, when it does reference that, does it give a year edition or a cycle edition?  

Jason: Yep, absolutely. So the jurisdiction, whether that be like a state jurisdiction, the state of whatever, New York adopts the 2018 international building and fire codes, and then they adopt a specific addition. Now, some states, they'll adopt a state code based on an addition of a model code. So they may write their own 2019 building code, but it's based on the 2018 International Building Fire Code. Very few jurisdictions write their code. That's why they're called model codes. You go adopt a model code that somebody else writes, and then you can tweak it, have local amendments and things. But yeah, they've got an addition. And then within that addition of the code, that win and wear piece, how piece is also referenced by addition. So the 2018 International Fire Code references, what the 2016 if you 13, right?  

Jason: Yeah. One behind you. So you can start to see how, and I know we'll probably get into this a little bit, why it takes so long for things that are happening in these standards to ultimately be enforced in your town. It's because of that process.  

Drew: And then just that delay, because NFPA is on a, I guess it's mainly a three year cycle. Some of 'em are a little bit different typically. So if you go the latest, it might not be that exact year. So you're going backward, and then obviously you have how long it takes. We can get into that right now as well while we're talking about it. When you're developing NFPA 25, 20 25 edition, always getting confused, all different 2025 that starts That started what? Last year?  

Jason: Oh, no. Or the 25 edition. 24. So the one that was published would've been the 22. So we started writing the 25 more or less, as soon as the 22 edition was published, as soon as we kind of knew what it was going to look like, you start the process of updating and making those changes for the next edition, which won't be referenced by the fire code until its next edition. So if everything works flawlessly and you've got a code change that's take what's an Vince Air vents on wet five sprinkler systems that went in what the 2016 edition of NFPA 13.  

Jason: So it doesn't hit the streets until the 2018 edition. The fire code references it and gets adopted, which is 2019 or 2020 in most places. So the public input that starts the conversation about air vents was written, the very first one was probably written in 2013, maybe around that day, around that year. So there's a public input that says, Hey, I think we should have vari events on wet systems. And that kind of starts the debate of whether there should or shouldn't be. And all that goes to the technical committee. So that's say 2013, the city you WIC work or live in adopts the 2018 fire code in 2020. So you're seven years from the first time somebody says, Hey, I think we ought to put an air vent on wet pipe sprinkler systems, and it works its way through. The process gets approved, gets published in 13. 13, gets referenced by fire code. It gets adopted in your jurisdiction in say, 2020. So there's seven years if everything worked perfectly, right?  

Drew: Yeah, seven years. And then you have all the delays in adoption. So seven years is the quickest. And by the way, I was talking, I caught myself NFPA 2025. It's the 2026 edition on the 2023 now.  

Jason: Yes. Yeah.  

Drew: Too many the editions out there.  

Jason: So we're writing public inputs. To your point, we're starting to think about what should the 2029 in NFPA 25 look like? That won't be adopted until whatever, the 31 fire code until you're retired. Jason, we won't have to worry about those.  

Drew: I always joked with Terry Victor and some of the others. I'm like, you guys are creating codes that you'll be sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere by the time they, it's so funny you mentioned him and that topic. We had a two hour phone call yesterday on some NFPA nine 15 topics that you'll be seeing here in a couple of months.  

Drew: Nice, nice. Yeah, that's an interesting standard that needs to more faster. But that one's another one where AHJs need to adopt it, and that's the trouble with that one.  

Jason: It just takes so long, and we're addressing technology that is changing hourly and trying to write codes that deal with it that are not going to be adopted on the streets for 10 years. I mean, doesn't the process something's got to give or I'd say maybe more accurately, maybe we just have to learn to write things a little better and we do a pretty good job. I think all the codes have equivalency sections where you can use new technology. But what we run into, and I'm going to throw an example out because it's one that I'm dealing with now or I dealt with a few years ago. So when Potter came out with their auto test flow switch, that device was developed and worked its way through the listing process and all that. I don't know. When I was a fire marshal, I can remember the guys at Potter because I was the president of the Missouri Fire Marshals Association, and Mike Kinky, I don't know if you remember Mike, but a product manager with Potter came to our conference and said, Hey, I want to show you something. What do you think about this? And this was 2010. [00:00:15 to 00:00:16] So here I am in 12 years later working for Potter because there was a line in 25 that said water had to flow past the flow switch. Well, the product they developed, water doesn't flow past it to test it uses other technology, but nobody thought when they wrote that section all those years before, that water flow must flow past the flow switch was going to create a problem. And it was never meant to create a problem, but there it was, right? It had to get something that had to get fixed in the code.  

Drew: Yeah. I remember my first being a guest at the first, right when we started in spec point back, I don't know, it was 10 years ago or a little less, and I think Mike was presenting at NFPA 25 about that topic, and it still wasn't resolved even back a few years after that was brought up.  

Jason: We finally, we got a group together to write the language that everybody could agree on. It is just the process. It takes time to our point here, and we were able to get there.  

Drew: What is the inside NFPA and we'll focus on NFPA for now from one addition to the next three year whatever edition it is. So you go from 2020 to 2023 and NFP 25, what are the different stages of that? Obviously you've been on plenty of technical committees and can explain it better than I can.  

Jason: So in the old days, we call it the ro, ro OP and ROC that would report on proposal and report on comments phases. Now they're called first and second draft. So you and I are both on NFPA nine 15. We're about to enter our first draft phase. So nine 15, the next edition, which will be whatever the 27 edition is entering its first draft. So it's open today until Friday actually for I saw that or whatever this week, someday sometime. It's open for public input, meaning the public has a chance to make inputs based on what the current edition says. So if you want to change something in this current edition of NFP nine 15, you have to submit that change proposal by Friday, whatever. And then we all meet in, I think Fort Lauderdale at the first week of March, you and I'll be there and we'll discuss all these proposals that are made, and then we'll develop what's called the first draft. All the proposals get voted on, and they ultimately get ballot by the committee. And then NFPA will publish the first draft of the next edition of NFPA nine 15. And then now that first draft is out for public comment. So it goes out again or gets open again so that everyone has a chance to comment on what the committee did during that first draft.  

Jason: And so then that process, it kind of starts over again. Everybody submits comments based on what the committee did, and then the committee will meet again after that comment phase ends, and they'll review those comments, and then they'll create what's called the second draft, which generally wraps up the process unless there are two other steps that folks can go through if they're still not happy with the outcome. There's the knit, ma'am, notice of intent to make a motion. You've been involved in some of those, I'm sure, where you go to the floor NFPA and you say, I submitted this to the committee. They disagreed at first draft. I commented on their disagreement. They still disagreed, but this really needs to be changed. And I'm going to the body, the whole NFPA assembly membership membership and try to convince them. And if they support you, then it goes back to the committee and the committee gets to ballot on that again. And generally they take will of the assembly, the membership, and then if all that fails, you've gone through those three basic steps. You have an appeals process at the end where you can go to the standards council and appeal. But that's really, those appeals are mostly on the process itself, right?  

Jason: Sure. There's not really any technical standards. Council doesn't really decide, yeah, you were right all along, we should include this, or we shouldn't, whatever. They review the process and say, no, you've had your due process and we are going to take the, so those are four steps over the three years, and then it's referenced by the fire code and what we talked about. Yep. Gotcha. All right. That explains it pretty well. Obviously I knew a lot of that, but again, a lot of the listeners don't. With AHJs and that whole process, the state comes onto a new fire code, or hopefully it's state and it's not, you mentioned some things before where local jurisdictions will bring in their own different code cycles or adoption, but why aren't they adopting the latest and greatest? But I guess it's whenever that fire code or whenever the fire codes are adopted, that's when it flows down, right?  

Jason: Typically, yeah. Yeah, typically, again, there's exceptions. Just like everything in our business. It depends rule, but yeah, the typical process is it's the jurisdiction adopts again, that fire code, and then everything flows, fire building code, then everything flows down from there. I think what really changes in a lot of cases is it goes from kind of a technical process to a political process. Not that the code change isn't political, right? I mean, there's a lot of, and I say that term, it's not a negative term, it's just a political process. The development piece is kind of political too. It's like, Hey, you reach out to the guys, you or guys and gals on the committee and you say, Hey, are you going to support me on this? I won't speak out against yours if you don't. I'm against mine, kind of thing. So that happens. That's just part of the industry that we work in. But so all that technical stuff happens, and then whether or not to adopt kind of becomes a political discussion because it's the legislature that decides ultimately.  

Drew: Gotcha. So the legislature, which is then influenced by the state fire marshal's office or whoever else.  

Jason: Or whoever. Yeah. So I mean, there could be lots of interests and maybe there was a code change that a particular interest has concerns over or it's going to impact whatever. I mean, profit margins, they don't feel like it's the right thing to do from a safety perspective or vice versa mean it becomes a political process at some point. And the adoption piece. So again, there's the technical piece that has happened at these committee meetings over the three or six years, and then eventually some in most cases, there's a political process for whether or not to adopt it eventually. So that's how you get there, and that's what people I think they don't really understand. Well, why is it that NFP 25 or 13 or whatever can have this really good code change, and why does it take 10 years for my local town to enforce it?  

Drew: Yeah. And then one town I am in the northeast, and there's multiple states pretty close together. So if you're operating a business in a variety of jurisdictions, I mean the codes don't change too much, but how do you manage that if you're across three or four different jurisdictions?  

Jason: Yeah, yeah. No, it's a real issue. And we were talking before about some states, New York state where you're familiar with, it kind of all flows down from the state. In their case, it gets adopted as a state code. It's primarily the primary enforcement is through the state fire marshal. And then the local ajs are basically deputized by the state fire marshal to enforce the state code. Where you get in, where I'm at in Missouri or Kansas, it's a hundred percent local. There's no state involvement at all. Now, the jurisdictions try to get together and try to generally adopt the same additions and try to generally have the same local amendments and things, but there's nothing that says they have to. So yeah, you can be, as a contractor, you can be working on one side of the street and have one set of rules and walk across the street, and it could be a whole nother addition of a code that you're under.  

Drew: Well, you said New York State, and I'm like, New York City's this own animal, and then Long Island its own thing, which is part of the state, but it's got its own ordinance, so it's apparent VIR everywhere. So how is a business? It's like you really got to be on top of the codes, both install and inspection to make sure you're doing the right thing on your projects.  

Jason: And it can be things like, I was thinking earlier about when we changed the electric fire fire pump test frequency from weekly to monthly back in whatever the 11 edition of NFP 25, right? There was a fire protection research foundation study that said that the risk of failure was only a sliver higher if it went to month, whatever. So now you go from having to perform this task 52 times a year to 12 times a year. That's a big deal. Or it can be a big deal. You're a public supermarket, I don't know, whatever, in Florida, and you've got thousands, maybe hundreds of fire pumps and 52 times a year versus 12 times a year times hundreds of pumps. It's a big deal. That's a big code change. And then you're like, oh, cool. We got N FFA 25 adopted this change, and then eight years later, you're, why don't we able to do annual pump? Well, the state hasn't adopted that edition to Fire code. It references that edition to 25 yet, or your referenced earlier, you have those automatic air vents. They're part of the install standard, but I think they were delayed in the NFP 25 edition. So when you install them, but how are you inspecting them?  

Drew: And when they're being installed everywhere now, they're just sitting there, right?  

Jason: Yeah. Who's inspecting the screen. Yeah, we could give dozens of examples of those things. Yeah, it's a process. This is great. Yeah. Anything else on the, I mean, obviously this is the NFPA process. It's similar. Obviously, NFPA is adopted for sprinkler up in Canada, but Canada has this with some of their other fire alarm standards as well. So just kind of similar cycles and process.  

Jason: Yeah, yeah. Generally what you see in Canada, and we're dealing with this in Latin America as well, is how do we get to the standard? We spend a lot of time trying to get the standards as good as we can as an industry. This at a very high level, back up a whole nother step, and think about how cool it is that we're in an industry that basically gets to regulate ourselves. And I don't mean that. That's certainly not a negative. I mean, that's a very positive thing because we want the best for fire protection. So go look at any committee and who makes up that committee? It's manufacturers, reps, and people like me with some sort of background. And I dunno, the Tracy Bellamy of the world, what tell Jim that represents Home Depot and a lot of committees, a big customer of theirs. So I mean, everybody wants to do what's right and that's why the process works so well. So you go to Columbia, the country, and they've got a lot of sprinkler systems and they want to see NFPA 25 enforced. And so how do we get through that process? It's an interesting, we're so used to that very consistent step by step by step in the US and then you get outside the us and it's not that way all the time.  

Drew: No, no, it's definitely not. And I know there's some emerging NFPA kind of global, and obviously the Middle East and Latin America are pretty big. So what is the biggest, I would say, NFPA code that could potentially change things, I guess maybe currently adopted, but maybe not enforced? Is there any NFPA code out there that you see that's potentially going to change things within the industry?  

Jason: A couple come to mind, and the first is NFPA 3 and 4, the commissioning and integrated testing. I think that's something that as we see more and more integration of systems and systems of systems that have to work together, that's what NFPA four was developed to do, is ensure that those systems of systems work together. They're supposed to. So the firearm code now says, if you've got a high rise or a building with smoke control system controlled by the firearm system, you have to attest those systems of systems in accordance with NFPA four. So those are the only two triggers for four today. But you see NFPA four and NFPA three, the commissioning piece referenced by a lot of specs. So that's kind of a whole separate process. But as far as the standard goes, and I think NFP three and four are a big deal because we've got to make sure that those systems of systems work together, perform the actions that we think they should be performing.  

Jason: And then my feelings on NFPA nine 15, that remote inspection and testing, that's a technology that's changing so rapidly, and I'm so excited when nine 15 came around to put some structure to this whole concept, and absolutely does it need some work? It's only first, we've only second one written the first edition, so we're in the process of the second one. So I think nine 15 is just going to get better and have more impact.  

Drew: Yeah, I agree. I think the biggest thing is getting the AHJs to see the light of it and how it will help, and some of the data that it'll potentially bring to data's, like you mentioned, the fire pump change within NFPA 25, that was all data. It's all data a hundred percent. And we should be utilizing more data within the industry, and I know NFP has tried, but there's got to be a better effort there. That's my feeling at least.  

Jason: And I think nine 15 opens the door for that, to your point, right? It opens the door. And as we get it referenced in the fire code, and we have it now referenced in NFPA 13, I don't know if you've seen the new edition of NFPA 13, but nine 15 is referenced in there now. So we have a path to nine 15 in 13 NFP 25, the standards that we deal with the most. But yeah, I think it opens the door for that data because now it gives the a h level of comfort to allow some of these auto testing and remote access devices to be on their systems and they can be more comfortable with it now.  

Drew: Yeah, no, no, for sure. That's kind of all, again, I wanted to keep it pretty high level with regards to codes and see what your thoughts on, I like your thoughts on three and four because I've seen that the commissioning side really work well. We deal a lot with ULC 5 37, which is more of, it's a verification process up in Canada for fire alarms.  

Jason: Yeah, it's exciting. And again, just when you think about NFPA four as a fire marshal, I think back in my days of, we're testing the firearm alarm system and we wanted to see the elevator go to ground, right? That's really an integrated system test because 72 scope ends at the relay, right? All 72 says is the panel has to send a signal. What the elevator does with that signal has nothing to do with 72, right? But as an AHJ I needed to see that the system of systems work together. Now that's exactly what NFPA 4 says, and NFPA 72 ends here, and then the elevator code takes over. But who says all those have to be tested together?  

Drew: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we're early in 25. Where are you going to be? Where's the Airstream going this winter?  

Jason: Mostly down here in Florida. See, we've got NFP nine 15 in March, and that's actually in Florida. And then we've got, let's see, what else is coming up? There's a couple others. NFSA's Engineering and Standards Committee is in February. And then AFSA's Technical Advisory Council. Similar process with the AFSA. It's coming up next week in Denver or in Dallas, so a lot of technical meetings. Everything kind of slows down for the holidays and then explodes and  

Drew: Yeah, once January hits.  

Jason: Yeah.  

Drew: Well, that's great. I'm excited to see you first half of this year and yeah, exciting year to come. Where can we find you? Where can the listeners find you?

Jason: Probably just best way to just do my website is just JWA fire, Jason Webb and Associates. It's not too hard to track me down, but JWfire.com is the best way to track me down. Reach me by email there.  

Drew: And I think you're pretty heavy on LinkedIn too, so feel free to reach out. Great. Great. What a great platform. I love that we can have such good, Sean Mahoney from NFPA, I got to throw out a plug for him on podcast a little while back. He awesome. He's really active on there. Does a great job. Anyway, I love to spend,  

Drew: Yeah, he just did something on dry January. It was pretty funny and topical. He got into dry systems and dry stem pipes, he does a great job and he's a forward thinker and all this stuff and all about, I'll probably have him out him again. He wanted to be a recurring guest and it's always great content and education, obviously. So,  

Jason: Yep. Smart guy. And yeah, he's definitely like-minded with you and I as far as the technology piece and how can we do things better.  

Drew: Yeah. Well, good stuff. Thanks again, Jason, and we'll see here soon.  

Jason: Yeah, no thanks Drew. Take care.  

Drew: All right, see you.