Updating Title 19
By Holly O’Dell
For the past two years, the California State Fire Marshal’s (CSFM) office—aided by technical and advisory committees of FR experts, including applicators, distributors, manufacturers and fire service—has been reviewing the flame-retardant regulations set forth in Title 19, California Code of Regulations (CCR).
“The main focus of this change has to do with testing protocols of the chemicals in fabrics and the accepting criteria for these test standards,” says James Parsegian, supervising deputy state fire marshal for the Fire Engineering division. “We are trying to streamline these test standards so they function better for the industry to follow.”
Updates under consideration include changes to the accepting criteria, the field-test method and labeling requirements, the addition of a large-scale testing method for certain fabrics and new requirements for aftermarket treatments.
The proposed changes still need to go through several steps after they leave the Office of the State Fire Marshal, through other agencies, before they are approved and published, including a public comment period and various administrative approval processes. The Flame Retardant Advisory Committee’s goal is to have the regulations package completed and ready for internal review by the end of 2012.
