NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 72

performing diagnostics, and updating
software. Previously, the code was
silent on the issue.
The expressed allowance was
included in acknowledgement that
remote access to alarms is already
widely happening, Roux said. In fact,
he believes that a majority of alarms
are now connected in some way to
either the Internet, a communication
infrastructure, or some other central
hub, allowing manufacturers to install
updates and technicians to monitor
and maintain the equipment. " The fact
is, if manufacturers have a bug to fix,
they don't want hundreds of technicians to go out and perform updates
on 2,000 alarms. They want to do it all
by pressing a button in their office, "
Roux said.
While this connectivity is convenient, connections to the outside do
create pathways for hackers to get
in, making cybersecurity measures
and the new guidance in NFPA 72
even more timely, Roux said. " We see
the two things kind of bucking one
another. In some ways they're conflicting, but they're both important, "
he said.

In some jurisdictions, technicians use
a color-coded tagging system on the
alarm control unit to let users and the
public know if the alarm is functioning properly. Green means everything
is good, yellow means it works but
is compromised, and red means it is
not functioning properly. In the new
edition, the committee decided to add
annex material offering guidance on
how to adopt this system of transparency if jurisdictions are interested in
doing so.
" Adoption of this is purely state
by state or jurisdiction by jurisdiction, " Roux said. " The code has never
touched this before, but people ask
about this all the time, and so the
committee decided to include some
new guidance. "

SURVIVABILITY
In many buildings, NFPA 72 requires
the wiring and components of an alarm
and signaling system to survive a fire

for two hours (or more) so that it will
keep doing its job. In specific cases,
however, the committee decided to
reduce that rating to an hour in the
next edition. The change applies mostly
to situations where the building itself
has a lower construction rating and
doesn't necessarily merit a two-hour
survivability requirement. " Although
NFPA 72 is a minimum code, it isn't
necessarily the right answer, " Roux
said of the two-hour requirement. " The
committee was proactive, and the provision is very limited as to what it will
apply to, but it's significant. This can be
a cost savings in those situations. "

MULTI-CRITERIA
DETECTORS
Signaling an impending major shift
in smoke detector technology, the
committee scrubbed many of the
references in the code to ionization
and photoelectric detection, the

technologies that have dominated the
market for years. That's because UL
announced two years ago that it was
changing its alarm listing standards
to include only alarms that can pass
a series of tests to prove that they
won't sound from cooking smoke or
other causes of nuisance alarms. As a
result, at the end of June 2022, when
the UL standard goes into effect, the
only detectors on the market will
likely be detectors that can pass this
test-detectors that NFPA 72 now calls
" multi-criteria " detectors.
" Ten years from now, 'ionization'
and 'photoelectric' are terms that will
no longer be used, " Roux said. " In this
revision of the code, the committee
changed a lot of places where the
terms were used and removed much of
the discussion relative to photoelectric
and ionization. "
JESSE ROMAN is associate editor at NFPA Journal.

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NFPA Journal - Summer 2021

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