A committee under the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has unanimously approved to develop its proposed standard for premises security.
At its third meeting regarding the standard, held in December, the Technical Committee received guidance from the NFPA’s Standards Committee, which concluded that developing an occupancy-based code was essential, and that it does not preclude the group from developing an installation standard, according to the Security Industry Association (SIA), which has been participating in the meetings.
A first draft of the document is scheduled to be completed by Feb. 7, 2003. The next meeting is scheduled for April 1-2 of this year.
Two task groups have been formed to develop the standard. Currently, a document that underwent some discussion and modification will serve as the basic format for the code side of the project.
Since its inital conception, many within the electronic security industry believe the NFPA is overstepping its boundaries in proposing this standard. However, “the NFPA is an ANSI accredited standards development organization, and, as such, provides a proven infrastructure and facilitation for this project,” states SIA Associate Director of Standards Mark Visbal in the association’s monthly newletter. With or without the industry’s participation, “The project will come to fruition,” he says.
