NRMCA, Other Industries Kick Off Development of Standard for Wildfire Resilience

The International Code Council (ICC) is developing a new standard, ICC 605 Standard for Residential Construction in Regions with Wildfire Hazard in order to specify enhanced prescriptive methodologies of wildfire resistant design and construction details for buildings and other structures of wood framed, steel framed, concrete or masonry construction sited in wildfire hazardous areas. The standard will provide prescriptive details for walls, floors, roofs, foundations, windows, doors and other applicable components of construction.

This standard is under the responsibility of the ICC’s Multi-Hazard Resiliency for Residential Construction Standards Committee, which began developing the standard during its committee meeting last week. NRMCA’s Shamim Rashid-Sumar is a member of the committee and attended the kickoff meetings along with other industry members and interested parties. The meeting was hosted by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) at its testing facility in Richburg, SC and included a demonstration test of wildfire ignition in residences (pictured here).

The committee will be working over the next two years to complete the standard and seek public comment.  It is also responsible for the maintaining ICC 600 Standard for Residential Construction in High-Wind  Regions. Following the development of ICC 605 for wildfire hazards, the committee will develop similar standards for seismic and tsunami hazards.

For more information on NRMCA's codes and standards advocacy efforts, contact Shamim Rashid-Sumar at ssumar@nrmca.org.