NFPA Journal - July/August 2017 - 46

REAL
GUIDANCE
CREATING THE ROADMAP

PROCESS REVIEW
To keep up with rapidly evolving technologies such as unmanned
aerial systems, NFPA considers new ways to make the standards
development process quicker and more nimble
looked at a particular request for two,
three, sometimes four meetings," said
Kerry Bell, the Standards Council chairman. "The council discussed it and felt
NFPA staff could do a lot of the legwork
and let the council look at everything
all at once. For the last few new projects, the council reviewed each one
just once-we had all the information
available to us to initiate the project."
The new workflow has had the
desired impact. For example, in January NFPA received a public request
to create a new standard for electrical
inspector qualifications. Staff gathered
public opinion on the new proposal's
merits, identified qualified and willing
volunteers to serve on the technical
committee to write it, and passed all of
the information to NFPA's Standard's
Council for its annual April meeting.
The council approved standards
development activities and the initial
technical committee roster during
instruments. How can codes and stanthat meeting. The committee's initial
dards developers keep up with it all?
It's a question that is becoming more meeting took place in May, a mere four
months after NFPA received the initial
acute as NFPA tackles a new range
public request-in standards developof technology-based standards, such
ment time, it's warp speed.
as unmanned aerial systems (UAS)
Going forward, other established
and energy storage systems (ESS),
mechanisms may be used to
and tries to keep pace with
NFPA.ORG/
keep some of these newer
advancements in other areas
such as the National Electrical CODES-AND- high-tech-based documents
STANDARDS
®
®
moving forward with the times.
Code (NEC ). The organization
When technology or circumhas responded, making key
Read
more
stances change rapidly and
changes that streamline the
about how
prompt a quick amendment
development of new standards
the standards
to a standard, such changes
in order to keep pace with our
development
evolving world. In some cases, process works, are possible through NFPA's
Tentative Interim Amendment
the changes can shave months
the value of
(TIA) process, which has been
and even years off of the time
standards
in place for decades. A TIA
it takes to complete a new
development
standard.
organizations, can be submitted by anyone
to propose or change text in a
In the past, the NFPA Stanand more.
current edition of an NFPA standards Council, which meets
dard. These submissions receive public
three times per year, would consider
review and technical committee review
a new standard piecemeal. At the first
and balloting before going to the
meeting, it would consider the project
Standards Council, which ultimately
request and vote to gather public opindecides whether to add the proposed
ion. At a subsequent meeting it would
text to the standard between full revilook at public reaction to the proposal
sion cycles.
and possibly vote on whether to form a
"Through its history I think NFPA has
new technical committee. The council
done a great job of monitoring the enviwould use a third meeting to approve
ronment and taking actions to adjust its
the proposed committee roster, only
process to meet the needs of the comthen paving the way for the drafting of
munity," Bell said. "Within the last few
a new standard to begin. In the blink
years there have been requests in a lot
of an eye, a year or more would pass
of areas that we haven't perhaps looked
without so much as an initial technical
at before, but I am confident that NFPA
committee meeting.
"I don't think anybody on the council and the council will adapt to whatever
need arises." -J.R.
was happy with old process, where we
It's amazing to consider: in 2006
there were no smartphones, no Netflix
streaming, no Uber, and no Amazon
Prime. Hardly anyone used Facebook.
And no one flew drones in their backyard. The world, it seems, can change
in an instant.
That's especially true in public safety,
as industries embrace avant-garde
technologies that pose unique safety
challenges, and as first responders
adopt high-tech tools such as robots,
sensors, and complex data analytics

"I DON'T THINK
ANYBODY ON THE
COUNCIL WAS
HAPPY WITH THE
OLD PROCESS."

46 | NFPA JOURNAL * J U L Y /A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

NFPA 2400 stands out in a few ways,
from the buzz to the holistic approach
of its scope to the committee's quickerthan-usual pace in writing it. Where
some standards can take several years
to develop, the need for guidance now,
as well as NFPA's efforts to streamline
some administrative processes (see "Process Review," this page), could result in
an accepted first draft of NFPA 2400 by
year's end, less than two years after the
initial request to create the document. It
is expected to go to the NFPA Standards
Council for approval in December.
Instead of separate standards for
UAS topics such as incident operations, professional qualifications, and
the selection, care, and maintenance
of the devices-as is the case for some
standards, such as the fire apparatus
documents-NFPA 2400 is all-incusive.
The intent is to give public safety agencies all of the information they need in a
single document for the sake of expediency and ease of use.
There is urgency to get the document
out for a number of reasons, according
to several NFPA 2400 committee members. Most obvious is the worry that a
large number of public safety departments are currently using drones with
no real policies or procedures in place,
and perhaps even illegally without
FAA approval, said Christopher Sadler,
assistant chief of the technical services
and special operations division at the
York County (Virginia) Department of
Fire and Life Safety. "I don't think they
are knowingly doing it illegally, it's just
that the information isn't out there," he
said. "But it is a huge risk management
and public perception issue."
Aside from the obvious danger of
a serious accident involving a drone
that injures a responder or civilian,
observers say, even the perception of
recklessness could hinder the emerging
drone movement before it fully takes
off. The public is finally beginning to
feel comfortable with public safety
drones after years of resistance stemming mainly from privacy concerns.
"All it takes is one screw-up for that to
come back again and bite us," Sadler
said. "Having this NFPA standard helps
assure our constituents and our elected
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2017
