WASHINGTON,
D.C.— William Jeffrey, director of the U.S. Commerce Department’s
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), today
called on the organizations that develop building and fire safety
codes, standards and practices— and the state and local
agencies that adopt them—to give immediate and serious
consideration to implementing the recommendations from NIST’s
investigation of the fires and collapses of New York City’s
World Trade Center (WTC) towers following the terrorist attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.
The final report from the most detailed
examination of a building failure ever conducted was released
today at a hearing of the House Science Committee on the NIST
investigation at which Jeffrey testified. Featured in the
report are 30 recommendations designed to improve the safety
of tall buildings, their occupants and first responders. It
is available online at http://wtc.nist.gov.
“I have assigned top priority for NIST
staff to work vigorously with the building and fire safety
communities to assure there is a complete understanding of
the recommendations and to provide needed technical assistance
in getting them implemented,” Jeffrey told the committee.
Jeffrey said that NIST believes its recommendations
are realistic, appropriate and achievable within a reasonable
period of time. However, he cautioned that improvements would
only be realized if they are acted upon by the appropriate
organizations. To facilitate this effort, NIST to date has:
- identified
specific codes, standards and practices affected by each
of the 30 recommendations in the final WTC towers report;
- reached
out to the organizations responsible for making changes
to expedite consideration of and action on the recommendations
(for example, NIST held a major technical conference on
the recommendations in September 2005 attended by over 200
people, including representatives from all major standards
and codes development organizations); and
-
awarded a contract to the non-profit National Institute
of Building Sciences to turn many of the recommendations
into code language suitable for submission of code change
proposals to the two national model code developers, the
National Fire Protection Association and the International
Code Council.
The NIST recommendations released today are
contained within 43 separate reports (totaling some 10,000
pages) that cover:
-
specific improvements to building standards, codes and practices;
- changes
to, or the establishment of, evacuation and emergency response
procedures; and
-
research and other appropriate actions needed to help prevent
future building failures.
Based on nearly 500 comments received during the six-week
public review period following the release of the draft WTC
towers report on June 23, 2005, the reports—including
some of the recommendations—were amended and clarified.
Both the complete set of comments and the full version of
the final recommendations are available online at http://wtc.nist.gov.
The recommendations
are divided into eight groups and summarized as follows:
1) Increased
Structural Integrity: The standards for estimating
the load effects of potential hazards (e.g., progressive collapse,
wind) and the design of structural systems to mitigate the
effects of those hazards should be improved to enhance structural
integrity.
Among
the recommendations in this group are:
- nationwide
adoption of standards and codes to prevent progressive collapse;
- more
reliable means of predicting the potential for complex failures
in structures subjected to multiple hazards; and
- nationally
accepted standards for wind tunnel testing of prototype
structures and estimating wind loads for tall buildings.
2) Enhanced
Fire Resistance of Structures: The procedures and
practices used to ensure the fire resistance of structures
should be enhanced by improving the technical basis for construction
classifications and fire resistance ratings; improving the
technical basis for standard fire resistance testing methods;
using the “structural frame” approach to fire
resistance ratings; and developing in-service performance
requirements and conformance criteria for spray-applied fire
resistive materials (SFRMs, commonly referred to as “fireproofing”).
Among
the recommendations in this group are:
- evaluating,
and where needed, improving, the technical basis for determining
appropriate construction classifications and fire rating
requirements—especially for tall buildings—and
making related code changes now by considering a variety
of factors (including timely access by emergency responders,
full evacuation of occupants and redundancy in fire protection
systems critical to structural safety);
- improving
the century-old standard for fire resistance testing of
building components, assemblies and systems—including
establishing a capability for doing the improved testing
under realistic fire and load conditions; and
- developing
and implementing criteria, test methods and standards for
measuring the in-service performance and as-installed condition
of “fireproofing.”
3) New
Methods for Fire Resistance Design of Structures:
The procedures and practices used in the design of structures
for fire resistance should be enhanced by requiring an objective
that uncontrolled fires result in burnout without partial
or global (total) collapse. Performance-based methods are
an alternative to prescriptive design methods. This effort
should include: (1) the development and evaluation of new
fire resistive coating materials and technologies, and (2)
the evaluation of the fire performance of conventional and
high-performance structural materials (such as fire-resistant
steels and concretes). Technical and standards barriers to
the introduction of new materials and technologies should
be eliminated.
4) Active
Fire Protection: Active fire protection systems (i.e.,
sprinklers, standpipes/hoses, fire alarms and smoke management
systems) should be enhanced through improvements to design,
performance, reliability and redundancy of such systems.
Among
the recommendations in this group are:
- enhancing
fire protection systems to provide redundancy and accommodate
the higher risks associated with tall buildings;
- developing
advanced fire alarms and communications systems that provide
continuous, reliable and accurate information on life safety
conditions; and
- developing
and requiring real-time secure transmission of data from
fire alarm and other monitored building systems for use
by emergency responders at any location, and storage of
that data off-site or in a black box.
5) Improved
Building Evacuation: The process of evacuating a
building should be improved to include system designs that
facilitate safe and rapid egress; methods for ensuring clear
and timely emergency communications to occupants; better occupant
preparedness for evacuation during emergencies; and incorporation
of appropriate egress technologies.
Among
the recommendations in this group are:
- improving
occupant preparedness for building evacuations through joint
and nationwide public education and training campaigns;
- designing
tall buildings to accommodate timely full building evacuation
of occupants if needed—including stairwell capacity
and stair discharge door width that accommodates counterflow
due to access by emergency responders;
- maximizing
the remoteness of egress components (i.e. stairs, elevators)
without making them hard to reach;
- using
pagers and cell phones for broadcast warning systems and
Community Emergency Alert Networks; and
- evaluating
for future use such current and next-generation evacuation
technologies as protected/hardened elevators, exterior escape
systems and stairwell descent devices.
6) Improved
Emergency Response: Technologies and procedures for
emergency response should be improved to enable better access
to buildings, response operations, emergency communications,
and command and control in large-scale emergencies.
Among
the recommendations in this group are:
- installing
fire-protected and structurally hardened elevators to improve
emergency response activities, the evacuation of mobility
impaired occupants—and preferably, all occupants—in
tall buildings;
- installing,
inspecting and testing emergency communications systems,
radio communications and associated operating protocols
to ensure that the systems and their protocols will function
in challenging radio frequency propagation environments
and large-scale operations, and can be used to track emergency
responders within a building; and
- developing
and implementing codes and protocols for ensuring effective
and uninterrupted operation of the command and control system
in large-scale building emergencies.
7) Improved
Procedures and Practices: The procedures and practices
used in the design, construction, maintenance and operation
of buildings should be improved to include encouraging code
compliance by non-governmental and quasi-governmental entities;
adoption and application of egress and sprinkler requirements
in codes for existing buildings; and retention and availability
of building documents over the life of a building.
8) Education
and Training: The professional skills of building
and fire safety professionals should be upgraded through a
national education and training effort for fire protection
engineers, structural engineers and architects. The skills
of building regulatory and fire service personnel also should
be upgraded to provide sufficient understanding of what is
needed to conduct the review, inspection and approval tasks
for which they are responsible.
Along
with strongly urging that immediate and serious consideration
be given to these recommendations by the building and fire
safety communities, NIST also advocates that building owners
and public officials evaluate the safety implications of these
recommendations to their existing inventory of buildings;
and take the steps necessary to mitigate any unwarranted risks
without waiting for changes to occur in codes, standards and
practices. NIST further urges state and local agencies to
rigorously enforce building codes and standards since such
enforcement is critical to ensure the expected level of safety.
NIST
will establish a Web-based system with information on the
status of its WTC recommendations that will be available to
the public so that progress in implementing them can be tracked.
NIST’s
investigation of the WTC towers fires and collapses was conducted
under the National Construction Safety Team (NCST) Act. The
act gives NIST the authority for conducting fact-finding investigations
of building-related failures that result in substantial loss
of life. NIST has no regulatory authority under the NCST Act.
The NCST
Act also states that no part of any report resulting from
a NIST investigation into a structural failure or from an
investigation under the act may be used in any suit or action
for damages arising out of any matter mentioned in the report.
NIST's
mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness
by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology—in
ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality
of life.
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