National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)'s Blog, page 77

A Better Understanding of NFPA 70E: NFPA 70E Equipment Labeling

Section 130.5(H) has specific requirements for equipment labels when there are electrical hazards present. For some reason, users of NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace have trouble applying Exception No. 1

Increasing Home Safety with GFCI Protection

  The 2020 edition of NFPA 70: National Electrical Code (NEC) hit the shelves back in September of 2019 and with its release came a sweeping change to the requirements for ground-fault circuit interrupter protection for personnel in residential

Addressing fire safety and evacuation in senior care facilities

My colleague, Robert Solomon, provides insights on fire safety and evacuation plans to I Advance Senior Care for the benefit of owners, executives, administrators, and directors of nursing at assisted living communities, skilled nursing

NFPA Codes and Standards: Not Just Words on a Page or Books on the Shelf

  The recent issue of NFPA Journal featured an article about the numerous deadly fires in health care occupancies, predominantly hospitals, that continue to occur throughout other parts of the world. Had that story been written in the 1960s, it

FORE! Improper charging of golf carts can lead to fumes and fire

  As the world’s leading information and knowledge resource on fire, electrical and related hazards, our public affairs department gets asked all kinds of questions. For example, this week’s media inquiries included requests for NFPA

NFPA 1: Standpipes in high-rise buildings, #FireCodefridays

  So far, 2020 has seen several noteworthy high-rise building fires.  On Wednesday, January 29, a fire in a 25-story residential high-rise in Los Angeles left at least 11 people injured, one fatally. The fire was said to have begun

A Better Understanding of NFPA 70E: When to Protect an Employee from Electrical Hazards

People tend to get hung up on whether or not it is safe to work on a specific piece of electrical equipment. Often the hang up is caused by an attempt to classify a task as electrical work or non-electrical work. Working on electrical equipment or

Last Week's High-Rise Building Fire in Los Angeles Prompts Questions around Fire Protection for Existing High-Rise Buildings

A resident clings to the exterior of a 25-story Los Angeles high-rise apartment building on January 29, 2020; photo courtesy of Al Seib/Los Angeles Times   I have to wonder whether passersby on L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard thought they were

#101Wednesdays: The Home Fire Death Conundrum - Part 1 of a Series

How did I get here? When you read an average of a half-dozen home fire death stories every day for a month, it changes you. That’s not hyperbole; I did and it changed me. At the conclusion of 2019, I wrote in my #101Wednesdays blog about the

NFPA 1: Fundamental electrical safety requirements in the Fire Code

Special thanks to Val Ziavras, Fire Protection Engineer at NFPA and Staff Liaison to the Fire Code Technical Committee, for writing this week’s Fire Code Fridays blog.    A recent viral video has been causing some serious problems in