The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has developed a draft standard for portable radios used in the hazard zone by emergency services personnel. The impetus for the standard came about after the tragic line of duty deaths of San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Vincent Perez and firefighter/paramedic Anthony Valerio, who were killed on June 2, 2011.
As a result, the NFPA was requested to create a standard for portable radios, and the NFPA 1802 committee has been working on this with a group of fire service personnel, manufacturers, and other experts. The committee is comprised of 35 principal members and 24 alternates.
Some of the features in this standard include:
- survival in high heat and flame impingement conditions
- over temperature and other failure indications
- standardized ergonomics
- hazard zone specific features
- the ability to interchange remote speaker microphones (RSMs) among various manufacturers
- provision for both wired and wireless RSMs
- RSM operational features including emergency alarm button, operation indicators, and programmable button for increased safety for those who wear the radio under their turnout coat
- intrinsically safe certification
- audio intelligibility testing
- logging of device history and many other provisions.
The work on the standard has already produced some early results: several manufacturers have begun offering remote speaker microphones that can survive temperatures of up to 500° Fahrenheit.
In April of 2018 the NFPA Standards Council approved the 1802 draft standard to enter into a fall 2020 cycle. The next step is to allow public comment. Anyone can provide input or edits to the draft and you don’t need to be an NFPA member.
Public comment opened in May, and will close January 3, 2019. The draft is posted for review and comment from the public at the NFPA 1802 page: https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail?code=1802. You will have to create a profile by providing an email and password, but you don’t have to be an NFPA member to comment.
Once all the public inputs are received, the committee will reconvene in a First Draft Meeting in early 2019. The committee is required to review and either adopt or answer all of the public comments.
Because of the importance of this work, the committee asks that interested parties, especially firefighters, hazmat technicians, and others who work in the hazard zone, review the first draft document and provide input.
The new standard will be issued in 2020.
