Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/1009631
palletcentral.com PalletCentral • July-August 2018 13 How does the NFPA codes apply to storage and units of raw materials? Koffel: They do not, the codes refer to the pallets themselves. A lot of facilities will have source materials, raw lumber, etc. Raw lumber is a different hazard than the pallet. The pallet presents interesting fire challenges because you have a lot of surface area, there are vertical and horizontal airways to fuel the fire; this is different than a solid pile of lumber which does not have as accessible airways. Both codes have separate provisions that deal with lumber storage, and you use those sections to find the requirements for storage of raw materials. Gething: The industry deals with different types of material, cut stock, meaning premanufactured components, for instance, deck boards and stringers. Cut stock falls into the general raw material group noted above. How can we best communicate the severity of the exposure of stacked idle pallets to our customers? Gething: NWPCA has done a lot of hard work on fire safety, from a facility standpoint. Now, as stewards of fire safety related to wood pallets, we're looking at effective ways to get the information into the hands of pallet users, i.e., your customers. The NWPCA Standards committee can look into this. Koffel: Certain documents like NFPA 13 talk about storage of idle pallets in a warehouse. NFPA 13 encourages you to store those pallets outside of the building, but recognizing that it can't always be done. It also provides stricter design criteria for those pallets inside the warehouse. What about wooden crate manufacturers? The code, as written, only applies to pallets. Is it possible that this language could be applied to crate manufacturing as well? Koffel: Other people have wanted to potentially jump on board with the work that NWPCA did. Everything that we do is based on wood pallets. Wood crates, again, are a different situation. The fuel is less concentrated in a wood crate, the passive air movement or hot gases is going to be different in wood crates. If I were looking at the storage of wood crates, I would think there should be different requirements for those compared to wood pallets. What was done to create these wood sections in the NFPA 1 and the IFC were all based upon the history and the issues around the wood pallet industry. A Q&A with NWPCA and Fire Code Expert & Recycling Facilities Safe & Recycling Facilities Safe