NFPA

The National Fire Protection Association of America (NFPA) publishes a free monthly newsletter providing detailed information on NFPA codes and standards activities. NFPA News typically includes special announcements, notification of proposal and comment-closing dates, requests for comments on NFPA documents, publication of Formal Interpretations (FIs), Tentative Interim Amendments (TIAs), errata, and notice of the availability of Standards Council agendas and minutes.

A terrible tragedy occurred early this morning here in Melbourne, when a man died in a home fire that the fire brigade believe was caused by a discarded cigarette.

Cigarette likely cause of fatal house fire

Fire investigators believe a fatal house fire at Heidelberg Heights, in Melbourne's east, was caused by a discarded cigarette.

A 56-year-old man died in the front room of the Wordsworth Avenue home about 2:00am.

Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board spokesman Bob Undy says smoke alarms in the house were working when the fire started.

"The smoke alarms had melted off the roof but being the early hours of the morning, it was unfortunate no-one else heard the alarm," he said.

The American National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has released a study on August 1 illustrating the number of people who die from fire in the USA.

The study estimated that approximately 3,675 people die each year from fire (almost one every 2.5 hours).

While I can't currently find similar figures for Australia, there is quite a lot of information available from each of the fire authorities around the country.

Today I attended the first day in a two day seminar on Fire Protection Systems Maintenance. There were a number of highlights but one in particular has important ramifications for the Australian Standards..

One of my bug bears has been the lack of control and integrity testing of changes made to the software inside a modern (addressable) fire alarm panel.

The NFPA standards have addressed this in the National Fire Alarm Code 72 (NFPA-72:2002).

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) World Safety Conference and Exposition conference starts on June 4, 2006 in Orlando. This year will include education and technical report sessions, pre-conference seminars, and an exhibition with over 250 providers.

Last years conference was held in Las Vegas and was very successful with almost 4000 conference attendees, an increase of 55% over 2004.

Addressing the needs of professionals concerned with saving lives and property and anyone who faces challenges in the areas of: Fire and life safety, Electrical, Security, Building design and management, Loss control/risk management, and Fire service the 2006 conference is building up to be a BIGGER and BETTER than last year.