11 & 12 - Fire Code Updates - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Item Nos. 11 & 12 TO: City Council Grayson Path, City Manager FROM: Thomas McMonigle, Fire Chief Clyde Crews Jr, Fire Marshal SUBJECT: Fire Code Updates DATE: March 28th', 2023 BACKGROUND: In 2017, the City of Paris updated the City Fire Code by repealing the 2006 edition and adopting the 2015 edition of the International Fire Code (IFC). The IFC provides a total approach of controlling hazards in all buildings and sites, regardless of the hazard being indoors or outdoors. The IFC's purpose when adopted is to provide the jurisdiction an enforceable set of regulations governing the safeguarding of life and property from fire and explosion hazards arising from the storage, handling, and use of hazardous substances, materials, and devices, and from conditions hazardous to life or property in the occupancy of buildings, premises, and facilities. It provides the City provisions for the issuance of permits and collection of fees. The IFC became the official Fire Code for the City of Paris in 2010, and is still the adopted Fire Code today. The IFC is a part of the group or family of codes developed by the International Code Council (ICC) in order to provide minimum standards to safeguard the public health, safety and welfare, and to provide for the safety of emergency responders. The ICC codes are drafted and updated by building professionals, code enforcing officials, industry representatives, design professionals and other interested parties every three years. Local government agencies are encouraged to keep current with code adoptions to maintain relevance in code enforcement and training, and also to improve insurance ratings provided by the Insurance Service Office (ISO). The ISO is responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of code enforcement agencies, and assigning a Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS) rating that is used by insurance providers when setting policy premiums with appropriate risk. The ratings range from 1 to 10, with a rating classification of 1 being exemplary and 10 being deficient. The City of Paris was evaluated by the ISO in June of 2016 and received a rating of 9 for 1 and 2 family dwellings (Res) and 9 for industrial and commercial (Com). During the evaluation, the ISO representative indicated that in order to improve the rating from a 9, the City would need to adopt, enforce and maintain a code that is within 5 years of its release. This was one of the reasons the City updated to the 2015 ICC codes in 2017. The City was re-evaluated in 2021 and was rated 6 (Res) 6 (Com). Today, in 2023, we are in the same position as 2016, with our adopted 2015 codes being 8 years post release.