Code Development and Analysis

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The Office of the State Fire Marshal's Code Development and Analysis Division reviews all of California's regulations relating to fire and life safety for relevancy, necessity, conflict, duplication and/or overlap. The division also prepares the California State Fire Marshal's fire and life safety regulations and building standards for review and adoption by the California Building Standards Commission.

Research and Development

The Code Development & Analysis Division includes a research and development component to create and propose special projects related to the prevention of disastrous fires. Staff work closely with private industry; federal, state and local fire service personnel and the academic community to initiate and assist in research projects and to distribute the results of such research. SFM research and development staff continually develop and revise concepts geared at reducing the incidence of uncontrolled wildfires and new technologies for the built environment and promote fire fighter safety. To date, research and development subjects have included everything from training for fire service on statutes and regulations, defensibility of structures during wildfire, vegetation management environmental impact, assessing the vulnerability homes exposed to wildfire, and developing fire safe design and hazard mitigation strategies, energy storage systems, mass timber buildings, A2L refrigerants, flammability standards for building insulation materials, mobile fueling, school lock downs, and solar installation provisions.

Title 24, California Building Standard Codes

• For information regarding the California Building Standards Codes please click here.
• The 2019 California Fire Code Amendments Handbook is available through ICC. The Handbook was developed in partnership with the California Fire Chiefs Association-Fire Prevention Officers and the International Code Council (ICC) to help code users understand the intent of the California amendments to the state-adopted fire code. Click here.

Current and Prior Rulemaking Activities

• AES Corporation Recalls IntelliPro (Information Bulletin 23-004)
• Title 19 Rulemaking
• Title 24 Rulemaking
• Tall Wood Building Workgroup
• Wildfire Protection Building Construction “CBC Ch7A” Task Force (2019).
• Oklahoma State University's Flammability Standards for Building Insulation Materials-Phase II Final Report
• The New Intervening Code Cycle regulations can be found at the CBSC website as the Supplements effective on July 1, 2018
• L-Occupancy Task Group
• On-demand Mobile Fueling (2016)
• I-3 Code Task Group 
• Schools Lockdown Task Force.
• Working Group on Flammability Standards for Building Insulation Materials.
• High-Rise Task Force - Final Report.
• Residential Fire Sprinklers and the California Codes.
• Solar Photovoltiac Installation Guidelines.
• OSFM Regulated Occupancies.
• NIOSH Releases Report on Preventing Deaths and Injuries of Fire Fighters Working Above Fire-Damaged Floors.
• National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
• Visit the web site of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) for read-only access to the NFPA codes and standards referenced in our state's statutes and/or regulations
• Office of the State Fire Marshal - Statutes and Regulations Class
  • The Statue and Regulations course is a two-day course developed for fire prevention personnel, building officials, and related design professionals. The course will assist in obtaining an understanding of laws and regulations that effect fire and life safety enforcement in California and the following: The scope and authority of local departments relative to California Statutes and Regulations.