Published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)

NFPA 101A has been updated to incorporate revisions in the 2006 Life Safety Code.

NFPA 101A consists of a number of alternative approaches to life safety. Each chapter is a different system independent of the others and is to be used in conjunction with the 2006 edition of NFPA 101: Life Safety Code.

The 2007 edition of NFPA 101A presents changes to the existing five Fire Safety Evaluation Systems (FSES) to assure that they accurately measure equivalency against the requirements of the 2006 NFPA 101: Life Safety Code.

The Fire Safety Evaluation Systems address the following occupancy types:

• Health care
• Residential board and care
• Detention and correctional
• Business
• Educational

From the Preface
This 2007 edition of NFPA 101A, Guide on Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, was prepared by the Technical Committee on Alternative Approaches to Life Safety and released by the Technical Correlating Committee on Safety to Life. It was issued by the Standards Council on July 28, 2006, with an effective date of August 17, 2006, and supersedes all previous editions.

This edition of NFPA 101A was approved as an American National Standard on August 17, 2006.

Origin and Development of NFPA 101A
This 2007 edition of NFPA 101A is the seventh edition. Prior to the development of the 1988 edition of this document, it was published as several appendixes to NFPA 101, Life Safety Code.

Chapter 4 first appeared as Appendix C in the 1981 edition of the Life Safety Code; Chapters 5, 6 and 7 first appeared in the 1985 edition of the Life Safety Code as Appendixes E, F and G; and Chapter 8 was proposed as Appendix H for the 1988 edition, but was published as a chapter of this document. These chapters were originally prepared by the Center for Fire Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (then the National Bureau of Standards). The Committees on Safety to Life have reviewed and modified the systems as appropriate for inclusion.

Chapter 9 appeared first in the 2004 edition and provides a Fire Safety Evaluation System (FSES) for educational occupancies.

The figures contained herein are copyrighted by NFPA, but users are hereby given permission to copy the worksheets for private use only.

To the User
This document provides alternative approaches to life safety based on the 2006 Life Safety Code. It is intended to be used with the Life Safety Code, not as a substitute. Section 1.4 of the Life Safety Code permits alternative compliance with the Code under equivalency concepts where such equivalency is approved by the authority having jurisdiction. The methods contained herein can be used to help determine equivalency where used as part of the technical documentation submitted to the authority having jurisdiction.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Administration. Chapter 2: Referenced Publications. Chapter 3: Definitions. Chapter 4: Fire Safety Evaluation System for Health Care Occupancies. Chapter 5: Fire Safety Evaluation System for Detention and Correctional Occupancies. Chapter 6: Evacuation Capability Determination for Board and Care Occupancies. Chapter 7: Fire Safety Evaluation System for Board and Care Occupancies. Chapter 8: Fire Safety Evaluation System for Business Occupancies. Chapter 9: Fire Safety Evaluation System for Educational Occupancies. Annex A: Explanatory Material. Annex B: Informational References. Formal Interpretation. Index.