Firefighters, Register Now for Remote ICC Final Code Hearings Voting

By Jack Murphy and Sean DeCrane

For the upcoming ICC Code Development Final Hearings in Long Beach, California, the Group-A public hearings will start Sept. 30^th and gountil Oct, 5, 2015.

The “Taming the Fire Environment (TFE) Series” Firefighter Safety and Codes – A Necessary Partnership is collaborating with Vision 20/20 Strategy 5 – Reduce Fire Loss by the Refinement, and Application of Codes and Standards that Enhance Public and Firefighter Safety, and Preserve Community Assets, and the Fire Life Safety Section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs will be posting the IBC/FS Group-A code proposals that will be impacting our work environment, the fireground. We will be posting the IBC/FS code proposals as a collective recommendation set forth to consider as:

• AS –Approved as Submitted
• AM-Approved and Modified, or
• D-Disapprove as submitted

The industry will always develop new methods and techniques to erect a building; the fire service needs to stay closely involved in the code cycle modifications.

The question today’s firefighter needs to ask, “Do you feel comfortable reading the outside of a building?” A modern building or an altered building may have a mixture of the 5 standard types/classes of construction within that single structure. e.g.

• Sample No.1 – Building Exterior: 1-story Type-1 Fire-Resistive Construction, 30 foot tilt-up with 12 in. thick poured concrete panels. Building Interior: Mezzanine level construction, exposed floor joist lightweight (LW) wood truss construction with TJI exposed roof rafters.
• Sample No. 2 – Building Exterior: 4-story Type-3 Ordinary Construction.  Building Interior: Floor joists and roof rafter cold-form lightweight metal construction.  Note: Old solid wood floor joist and roof rafters removed during a major alteration project and replaced with LW components.

What you see on the outside is not what you get on the inside.

Download this document as a PDF HERE.

HENCEFORTH WE NEED YOU TO HELP UNITE OUR COLLECTIVE FIRE SERVICE VOICES so as to impact THE PUBLIC AND FIREFIGHTER SAFETY for years to come, by having the local fire official and voting fire department members register to vote.  If you are not going to be in person at the Long Beach final code hearings, we need you to go online at the ICC Electronic Voter Designation for a remote voting within your own fire district . The local fire official must go online to update the department voters.  THE VOTE REGISTRATION DEADLINE is August 31, 2015.

For the On-Line voting go to the ICC cdpAccess link below. This link will enable voters to vote from their own computers after the conference ends. All voters will still need to be approved by the deadline to vote either way.

https://av.iccsafe.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=icc-cdp&WebCode=LoginRequired&URL

1^ST GROUP:  IBC/FS CODE PROPOSALS FOR CONSIDERATION:

TFE will be posting IBC/FS Code Proposals for fire service organizations to consider for the Final Code Hearing.

Be safe out there.

Jack J. Murphy, MA, is a fire marshal (ret.)/fmr. deputy chief and has served as a deputy fire coordinator for the N.J. Div. of Fire Safety (Bergen Region). He is the Chairman of the New York City High-Rise Fire Safety Directors Assoc., a member of the NFPA High-Rise Building Safety Advisory and 1620-Pre-Incident Planning Committees. He has published various fire service articles and authored: RICS; Rapid Incident Command System Field Handbooks; the “Pre-Incident Planning” Chapter-29 of the Fire Engineering’s Handbook for Firefighter I & II; and co-authored, “Bridging the Gap: Fire Safety and Green Buildings.”  Jack is a PennWell Fire Group Executive Board member, a Fire Engineering contributing editor, co-hosts Taming the Fire Environment on the Fire Engineering website and he has received the 2012 Fire Engineering ‘Tom Brennan” Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sean P. DeCrane, is a 24-year veteran of the Cleveland Fire Department. He currently serves as a Battalion Chief and Chief of Training for the Cleveland Fire Training Academy. Sean is a State of Ohio Certified Instructor and represents the International Association of Fire Fighters in the International Code Council. He also has served on the 2009 and 2012 International Fire Code Development Committees and is the current Committee Chair for the 2015 Edition. He was awarded the 2010 ICC Fire Service Award and the 2013 IAFC Fire Life Safety Section’s Fire Service Award.  DeCrane also serves on the NFPA 1 Fire Code Technical Committee. In addition, Sean serves on the Underwriters Laboratories Fire Council, the United States Fire Administration’s Residential Fire Environment Workshop Project, the United States Fire Administration’s project on Fire Fighting Tactics in Wood-Frame Residential Construction and the Modern Fire Environment Education Committee. He is a contributor for Fire Engineering Magazine and co-hosts Taming the Fire Environment on the Fire Engineering website.