Why NFPA 3000 was created

The National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 3000TM (PS), Standard for an Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER) Program, is a necessary tool to address an evil in our world.

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Hostile event response and recovery

Some have asked why NFPA would be the organization to develop an active-shooter standard. “For more than a century, NFPA has facilitated a respected consensus process that has produced some of the most widely used codes and standards in the world, including more than 100 that impact first responders,” says Jim Pauley, NFPA’s president and CEO. “Our purview goes far beyond our fire-safety efforts as evidenced by our ongoing work to address new hazards with professionals in public safety, emergency management, community risk, electrical services, the energy sector, engineering, the chemical and industrial industries, health care, manufacturing, research, the government and the built environment. The recent increase in active-shooter incidents and the fire-service involvement in them warranted NFPA’s standards development expertise and the timely development of NFPA 3000.”

The 50-member technical committee responsible for NFPA 3000 is NFPA’s largest startup committee to date. It includes representatives from law enforcement, fire service, emergency medical services, hospitals, emergency management, private security, private business, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Justice and others. Committee members contributed professional perspectives as well as lessons learned while responding and recovering from mass killings at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sandy Hook (Conn.) Elementary School, the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin and the Boston Marathon.

NFPA 3000 helps entire communities organize, manage, communicate and sustain an active-shooter/hostile-event preparedness, response and recovery program. In the days since the standard’s release, hospital officials, campus safety professionals, emergency management authorities, policymakers and emergency responders have endorsed the standard as an important document for an increasingly violent world.

To learn more about NFPA’s active-shooter standard, resources, training and related content, log on to www.nfpa.org/3000news.