Putting together a company safety newsletter and found some interesting NFPA history...
Ever wondered why/how NFPA came about?
"Modern fire safety codes and standards, and in particular those developed by the NFPA, trace their origins to the nineteenth-century development of automatic sprinklers. From the beginning, sprinklers performed properly as extinguishing devices; however, they were originally installed in so many different ways that their reliability was uncertain.
In March of 1895, a small group of men representing sprinkler and fire insurance interests gathered in Boston to discuss these inconsistencies. They knew that nine radically different standards for piping size and sprinkler spacing could be found within 100 miles of the city of Boston. They realized that this plumber's nightmare had to be resolved or the rate of sprinkler system failure might prove unacceptable."
Pretty interesting it was the sprinkler plumbing that sparked (pun intended) the creation of NFPA
Check out the full story here:
https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Codes-and-standards/Standards-development-process/HistoryNFPACodesStandards.ashx
Comments (8)
If you are interested there is a youtube channel devoted to the history of H&S and fire safety.
https://www.youtube.com/user/markdcatlin
Nice! Thanks for the lesson!
Sometimes I think I am a little hyper critical at times when manufactures have input on standards. Kind of like putting the mouse in charge of the cheese
