NFPA makes important safety codes and standards available for free online

As part of its commitment to enhancing public safety, NFPA makes its codes and standards available online to the public for free. Online access to NFPA's consensus documents conveniently places important safety information on the desktops of traditional users as well as others who have a keen interest. NFPA is committed to serving the public's increasing interest in technical information, and online access to these key codes is a valuable resource.

To review codes and standards online:

• View the full list of NFPA's codes and standards.
• Select the document you want to review.
• Select the edition of the document you want to review.
• Click the "Free access" link (under the document title)
• You will be asked to "sign-in" or create a profile to access the document in read-only format.

"One of the things we've done, over 10 years ago, is to take all of our codes and standards, which are our lifeblood, and put them up on the internet to be accessed by anyone," says NFPA President Jim Shannon.

"NFPA strives to make its documents as accessible as possible, because we believe this is the best way to accomplish our mission," says NFPA President Jim Shannon. "NFPA is proud to have been the first organization to have taken this bold step of creating free public access to privately developed codes and standards, and we are happy to see other organizations following our lead. There are some who argue that we should do more and immediately make all of our documents available online without any restrictions. Taking that action would be suicidal, however, since most of the money we need to fund our process and other vital mission activities comes from the sale of codes.

"It has also been suggested that we ask the industries that use our documents to pay for their development. This would also create significant problems, since one of the beauties of the system as it has always existed is that it provides us with an independent source of revenue. Nobody can influence us by threatening to withhold funds, because our system is funded not by a few big interests but by the thousands of users who pay for their copies of the code. "NFPA is proud to have been the first organization to have taken the bold step of creating free public access to privately developed codes and standards." Read more.