The July 2024 Halon Alternatives Research Corporation (HARC) Newsletter provides a very valuable and timely snapshot of where the industry is today on the regulation of PFAS substances used in fire protection. Read the full newsletter.

For the latest news and resources surrounding PFAS, visit the FSSA PFAS Resource Center.

Due to combined efforts, proposed legislation in Alaska was amended to remove “firefighting substance” and replace with “firefighting foam.” In early 2023, an Alaskan Senate bill was introduced with the intention of regulating the use of firefighting foams, but the wording referred to “firefighting substances.” There was concern that that this could be interpreted to also regulate clean agents.

As reported by HARC, there were combined efforts by a local fire equipment distributor in Alaska and lobbyists that work for the American Chemistry Council (ACC) to convince legislators to change the language so as to focus on firefighting foams containing PFAS and not clean agents. In the spring of 2024, an amendment was introduced and SB 67 was enrolled as a Law to become effective January 1, 2025.

Two certified amending motions on NFPA 72 will be balloted at the technical meeting on June 20, following the NFPA Conference (June 17-19 in Orlando, FL). The Automatic Fire Alarm Association (AFAA) has recommended to its members the following positions on these CAMs.

CAM 72-2  Support
CAM 72-6  Oppose

Calling FSSA Members in the NJ area:

The New Jersey Division of Fire Safety's Fire Protection Equipment Advisory Committee is looking for applicants that are members of FSSA to serve on this New Jersey committee.

The purpose of the committee is to make recommendations to the Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs. Recommendations may include rules and regulations pertaining to professional training, standards, identification, and record keeping procedures for certificate holders and their employees, classifications of certificates necessary to regulate the work of certificate holders and other matters necessary to effectuate the sections of the Uniform Fire Safety Act. Pursuant to N.J.S.A.52:27D-25o, the Director of the Division of Fire Safety shall serve ex officio, as well as eleven public members appointed by the Governor.

Hello FSSA Members,

Are you attending the upcoming NFPA 2024 Conference June 17-19 in Orlando? If so, we invite you to join us for the following FSSA sessions:

Please share this information with anyone you may know who is or will be enrolled in a fire protection program and/or any schools that have a fire  protection program.  To qualify for a scholarship, the applicant must complete the FSSA Scholarship Application online form and upload the necessary documents to FSSA Educational Foundation Headquarters by Saturday, June 1, 2024.

As part of FSSA's partnership with FPA Australia, the Global Outreach Committee is sharing this event with our members. Fire Australia 2024 will be held May 7-9 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. If any FSSA members are attending, feel free to comment on this post so you can connect with each other. Visit the FPA Australia website for event details.

On July 20, 2023, the EPA published an update to (40 CFR Part 84) which implements the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act. The updated regulations, effective September 18, 2023, include new requirements to verify the quality of HFC fire suppressant agents by laboratory testing as well as additional recordkeeping requirements. These updated regulations affect FSSA members who fill or recharge HFC fire system cylinders. An overview of the EPA regulation was given at the FSSA Annual Forum and discussed at the division meetings. (88 Fed. Reg. 46836)

SUMMARY OF THE REGULATORY UPDATES

FSSA has filed petitions in Maine and Minnesota, seeking a Currently Unavoidable Use (CUU) exemption from the Maine PFAS law and the Minnesota PFAS law that seek to regulate products containing “intentionally added PFAS.”  These laws define PFAS so broadly they would encompass certain clean agent fire suppressant agents, including HFC-227ea, FK-5-1-12 and HFC-125.

Copies of the FSSA petitions are linked below.

NFPA 855 What To Do for Data Centers When They Want to Change Out the Lead Acid Batteries to Lithium Ion?

NFPA 855 Partnering with AHJs to Implement Local Codes

NFPA 855 Why is Partnering with Organizations like FSSA, NFPA & ICC Important?

The FSSA Global Outreach Committee is connecting with other like organizations with the goal of sharing information across the industry.  The Fire Protection Association of Australia published the following information bulletin, Selection and Use of Firefighting Foams.

The purpose of this Information Bulletin is to increase awareness of the issues surrounding the selection and use of firefighting foams based on their:

NFPA 855 How to Work with Your AHJ on an HMA

NFPA 855: Would Annunciator Panels Have Made a Difference at the McMicken Arizona Lithium-Ion Facility Fire?

NFPA 855: What is a Plume Study and Why is it Important to your Hazard Mitigation Analysis (HMA)?

The Hazard Mitigation Analysis (HMA) is step number one. This is the first thing that you as manufacturers, you as installers, you as property managers that are looking for properties, need to talk about; do we have an HMA for our batteries? I had someone come up to me recently and say, well, sometimes when we pick a site, we don't know the technology. Okay, you normally have a couple in mind or two, or three. Make an HMA with all three technologies and then we can just get rid of the ones that you don't end up using. But let's start this hazard mitigation analysis early. Because what it does is it looks at the consequences of failure. And if you look at the Phoenix Fire Code, we require this for every single battery installation. NFPA 855 and the base International Fire Code (IFC) has three different criteria.

NFPA 855: How are battery manufacturers working with UL to create safer batteries?

In the ICC, Chapter 12 is what deals with lithium ion and other batteries Currently, there's a committee called the Fire Code Action Committee that brings in industry, manufacturers, AHJ’s, like myself, and experts. We're working on different parts of Chapter 12 for energy issues. Be careful, just because a jurisdiction adopts Chapter 12, we might amend it. In the City of Phoenix, we amended Chapter 12, heavily. Ours is probably a little bit more restrictive than most of the country. I would say our sprinkler density, that we'll talk about here in a little bit, is more restrictive. We wanna require our AHJs to be more restrictive, so be careful. Always look at the code amendments from that local jurisdiction.