scope:

Purpose

The purpose of this standard and the Center Fire Protection and Life Safety Programs is to protect human life, property, and the environment from the risk of fire-related hazards, through the application of codes, standards, and best practices, engineering analysis, fire prevention techniques, and public education and awareness of fire safety for NASA and contractor personnel.

This standard establishes requirements for life safety, fire prevention, detection, control, and suppression through engineering, inspection, training, and firefighting. A fire protection and life safety program consists of fire protection and life safety engineering (to minimize the occurrence of fire and fire loss through engineering designs and systems), fire prevention (to inspect for employee-created fire hazards and provide fire safety education and training), and a fire suppression force (to minimize losses in the event of a fire).

Applicability

This standard applies to NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers, and may be cited in contract, program, and other Agency documents as a technical requirement. This standard may also apply to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or to other contractors, grant recipients, or parties to agreements to the extent specified or referenced in their contracts, grants, or agreements.

This standard applies to NASA-owned and NASA-operated, temporary and permanent, buildings, facilities, and installations, and to non-NASA-owned contractor or tenant buildings, facilities, and installations, operated on NASA property.

The International Building Code (IBC), 2018 Edition, the International Existing Building Code, 2018 Edition and the NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, 2018 Edition, are incorporated by reference. This NASA Standard for Fire Protection and Life Safety is a companion to these consensus standards and provides requirements to be used in addition to, and in some cases, in place of, those published in the IBC, IEBC and NFPA 101 to ensure fire protection and life safety at NASA facilities. The chapters of this revised standard match those of the IBC. Each chapter includes only additional content and requirements to that in the IBC or to be used in lieu of the IBC. Where there are conflicts between the requirements in the IBC and NFPA 101, use the more stringent requirement unless otherwise required by the AHJ.

This standard is not intended to be a substitute for Federal or applicable State and local government requirements. When conflicts exist between this document and voluntary consensus standards, this document takes precedence, except in those cases where the voluntary consensus standards are invoked by applicable Government regulation.

Note: Center level requirements in addition to, and that do not conflict with, those listed herein may be appropriate for inclusion in Center-specific fire protection and life safety policies and procedures to address unique applications and situations not covered by this document. For example, the AHJ may elect to adopt state and local building and fire codes provided they are not found to be in strict conflict with the requirements noted herein.

In this standard, "shall" denotes a mandatory requirement, "may" denotes a discretionary privilege or permission, "can" denotes statements of possibility or capability, "should" denotes a good practice, and "will" denotes an expected outcome.

In this standard, Appendices are considered required parts of this standard. They are separated into appendices for organizational purposes only.