UNDERSTANDING THE FIRE CODE MENTALITY

For decades there were almost no one within the fire protection field who would question the integrity of the NFPA codes and practices or the integrity of the testing at Underwriters’ Laboratories. Today, as the number of people who question the reasons why a phony smoke detector was installed in millions of homes I sense that there is an amazement that such corruption could happen. How any decent person could put a phony smoke detector into homes to protect children? That is what amazes a lot of people today. Of course, it was the belief that - no one would ever protect children with a defective device - that made it so difficult to get the message out that it was happening.

As someone who lived at the time and challenged the corruption, I realize that it was all part of the acceptable way of fire protection - meaning protect the system and the Hell with the kids. I am attaching a letter I wrote the “Clay” Claiborne regarding the efforts to prevent the Life Safety System from gaining approval from the BOCA (building code organization). This was a major advancement from the industrial (property protection) system to the small pipe engineered Life Safety System. The NFPA and the insurers did not want an economical fire protection system, especially one that could protect homes. Fire was the business of the fire business.

I had tested the LSS in full view of the top fire experts in the country and it worked to perfection and not one of them faulted the system. But, the decision was made that it must not be allowed. One of the strategies to kill the economical true engineered system was for the NFPA code people to revise the NFPA sprinkler system code and then claim that the LSS was no longer needed because the revised NFPA code would do it all.

So, the henchmen of the NFPA met for 5 days and made a number of revisions. Of course, the revisions that were made were copied from the LSS and then made less pertinent because they did not want their revised system to be too good, just changed enough to (hopefully) convince everyone that the new NFPA code was now perfected and any other change was not needed. Although they were stealing my research before downgrading it, they had no plans to give me credit for any of it. Jenson was to be the hero who brought about change. Jenson and the fire insurers were very close.

Probably the most common change in the revised code was that the word “shall” was changed to “should” throughout the code. In theory this was to make requirements into suggestions to be evaluated by the authority having jurisdiction. But the fire chiefs and all others simple treated “shall” as “should”. My letter to Claiborne who was helping me get the code adopted by BOCA tells the story of how those who benefited from fire did not want a practical system for protecting lives in homes. It gives you further insight into the minds of the kind of people who will put a phony smoke detector into a baby’s nursery. When the business is a sea of corruption, corruption seems to be the norm. Who can object to the norm? Not very many.

RMP6/24/2010