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Life Safety Code


The publication Life Safety Code, known as NFPA 101, is a consensus standard widely adopted in the United States. It is administered, trademarked, copyrighted, and published by the National Fire Protection Association and, like many NFPA documents, is systematically revised on a three-year cycle.

Despite its title, the standard is not a legal code, is not published as an instrument of law, and has no statutory authority in its own right. However, it is deliberately crafted with language suitable for mandatory application to facilitate adoption into law by those empowered to do so.

The bulk of the standard addresses "those construction, protection, and occupancy features necessary to minimize danger to life from the effects of fire, including smoke, heat, and toxic gases created during a fire.". The standard does not address the "general fire prevention or building construction features that are normally a function of fire prevention codes and building codes".

The Life Safety Code was originated in 1913 by the Committee on Safety to Life (one of the NFPA's more than 200 committees). As noted in the 1991 Life Safety Code Handbook; "...the Committee devoted its attention to a study of notable fires involving loss of life and to analyzing the causes of that loss of life. This work led to the preparation of standards for the construction of stairways,fire escapes, and similar structures; for fire drills in various occupancies and for the construction and arrangement of exit facilities for factories, schools and other occupancies, which form the basis of the present Code." This study became the basis for two early NFPA publications, "Outside Stairs for Fire Exits" (1916) and "Safeguarding Factory Workers from Fire" (1918).

In 1921 the Committee on Safety to Life expanded and the publication they generated in 1927 became known as the Building Exits Code. New editions were published in 1929, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1942 and 1946.

After a disastrous series of fires between 1942 and 1946, including the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire in Boston, which claimed the lives of 492 people and the Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta which claimed 119 lives, the Building Exits Code began to be utilized as potential legal legislation. The verbiage of the code, however, was intended for building contractors and not legal statues, so the NFPA decided to re-edit the Code and some revisions appeared in the 1948, 1949, 1951 and 1952 publications. The editions published in 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963 refined the verbiage and presentation even further.


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