(Aug. 15, 2020) As school districts across the State prepared to start the 2020/21 school year, they were coming up with innovative ideas to meet COVID-19 safety guidelines and the mandates of their local school boards and public health agencies. Some of the ideas involve changing spaces and rooms within school buildings or adding partitions or other means to separate class cohorts. However, whenever a space, room, or area is repurposed or separations are constructed, even if these changes are only temporary, the school must apply for a building permit and potentially a fire code permit to ensure life safety in the built environment.
Recognizing that the building/fire code permit process can be lengthy and that schools were short on time to enact changes in time for the school year, the Division of Fire Prevention & Control's Fire & Life Safety section identified ways they could expedite the process while ensuring that corners aren't cut on safety measures at schools. On Aug. 13, DFPC launched a separate plan review queue for temporary structures and a dedicated plan reviewer to review these plans and issue permits quickly, once compliance is confirmed. For those instances where there is a qualified local fire jurisdiction, the dedicated building plan reviewer personally notifies the local fire jurisdiction upon receipt of the plan review and conveys the need to prioritize these reviews.
DFPC also issued special guidance on how to safely conduct fire and evacuation drills during the pandemic. Read the guidance below: