Ground ladder test goes another round in the NFPA standards process
Dispatches
It will be at least July before fire departments using pre-1984 ground ladders get a partial and temporary reprieve from newer, more stringent testing standards. With the equipment costing in the thousands of dollars, some departments have been finding the 1984 version of the National Fire Protection Association Standard 1932, “Use, Maintenance, and Service Testing of Fire Department Ground Ladders,” an expensive proposition.
It’s the horizontal bending test that’s at issue. The test is intended to simulate the use of a ground ladder at the proper placement, at the proper 75½degree angle, and with people moving on it. With the ladder extended between two sawhorses, the tester puts a weight in the middle.
Under the old standard, the weight in the middle was 250 pounds; the 1984 rewrite requires 500 pounds. The NFPA committee that wrote the new standard based the figure on the increased weight of firefighters’ protective gear, the relationship between stationary testing and fireground use involving movement, and actual observations of the spacing between persons using a ground ladder.
Aluminum and fiberglass ladders that fail the horizontal bending test end up bent out of shape; wooden ones that fail break in two. The International Association of Fire Chiefs filed a complaint about the number of ladders failing the test even though they seemed adequate on the fireground. One IAFC report says more than half the ground ladders longer than 35 feet were flunking.
“The standard is two years old, and the controversy didn’t arise until six months ago,” observes Arthur E. Cote, the NFPA’s assistant vice president for standards. “It’s a conjecture on my part, and on the part of some other people, that that’s because OSHA is enforcing it.” The U.S. Occupational Safety and Flealth Administration’s regulations implicitly refer to the new NFPA standard.
The IAFC complaint triggered a process that resulted in a proposed tentative interim amendment to 1932 being sent to the NFPA’s Standards Council for approval at its April meeting. Until July of 1994, fire departments using pre-1984 ladders would be able to test using 400 pounds instead of 500. But with the lighter test load comes a requirement for a lighter real-life load. Only two people at a time would be allowed on the ladders, with a maximum concentrated load—as when a firefighter carries a fire victim—of 500 pounds. The 1984 version allows three people and 750 pounds.
But the council sent the amendment back to the Fire Department Equipment Committee, which had written it. “There was a mixed bag of responses” during the comment period for the amendment, Cote explains. Several individual chiefs argued against reducing the test weight, while the National Volunteer Fire Council suggested that even 400 pounds is too much. The Los Angeles City Fire Department and a manufacturer of wooden ground ladders weighed in with the opinion that the horizontal bending test is inappropriate for in-service testing.
After the committee reconsiders the amendment, the Standards Council is likely to vote on it in July.