- Author
- Lyons, J. W.
- Title
- Requirements for Fire Safety of Combustible Materials in the United States.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC
- Book or Conf
- University of Edinburgh. Fire Safety of Combustible Materials International Symposium. October 1975, Edinburgh, Scotland, 12-19 p., 1975
- Keywords
- combustible materials | fire safety | ignition | fire suppression | smoke spread | fire statistics | fire losses
- Abstract
- Fire safety of buildings and building furnishings in the United States is controlled by local codes and certain mandatory Federal requirements. The test methods and criteria used in codes generally are developed by technical committees of ASTM or NFPA. In a typical development these tests are first incorporated in the NFPA Life Safety Code, then in the four model building codes before finding their way into local codes. An alternative mechanism is inclusion in a mandatory Federal requirement as, for example, in the standards for housing insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for nursing homes supported by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, hospitals run by the Veteran Administration, or transportation vehicles regulated by the Department of Transportaion. Test methods for these Federal agencies are developed by Federal research, often at the Center for Fire Research at the National Bureau of Standards.