6 years ago

Changes to NFPA 1994 standards

The NFPA 1994 standards have been updated - as a response to CBRN terrorism incidents.

Today I want to talk about changes to NFPA standards. Specifically, I will talk about NFPA 1994 which is response to CBRN terrorism incidents.

This standard should have been issued in 2016. However, delays have occurred because of some major changes that were implemented. The major change was for the standard to include hazmat response as well as CBRN.

As a member of the NFPA technical committee that wrote this standard, I can honestly say that I am not satisfied with the work that has been done. We are a hardworking group of people, but have not done a very good job of producing a standard that is correct. The standard was supposed to be issued in May 2017, however we reviewed the draft and recognized that there were some changes that had to be made.

The process to revise an NFPA standard without a full revision cycle is called a TIA (Tentative Interim Amendment). In this case, six TIA’s have been generated against this document and as a result, the NFPA has delayed approval. It was originally set to be published in May and we are now told it may be December. It is frustrating that we can’t do a better job in getting this standard published.

There are other issues that are going to cause problems for the manufacturers in trying to certify some of these new requirements, but that is for the manufacturers to deal with. I only hope that the document is approved and that we have a document that has the user‘s best interest. Sometimes I am concerned that that is not the case.