Search Results

Small open shelters are common on athletic fields, golf courses, parks, roadside picnic areas, schoolyards, and elsewhere. Many of these shelters are built to protect against rain or sun, not lightning. What can be done to minimize risk/maximize safety for people inside them under direct and indirect lightning strike conditions? Although there is no such thing as a lightning-proof small outdoor shelter, a properly designed and installed lightning protection system may make a difference. Sometimes the difference is between life and death.

The National Fire Protection Association NFPA-780 Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems is the de facto lightning protection document in the USA. Special interest groups seeking to force scientifically unsubstantiated air terminals into NFPA-780 have coerced under threat of litigation the NFPA Standards Council to withhold the Version 2000 Upgrade of NFPA-780. This present state of paralysis exists despite membership approval of the Version 2000 Upgrade in accord with all the NFPA by-laws. More recently the Standards Council publicized its intent to (perhaps) withdraw NFPA-780 entirely. As a consensus document NFPA-780 represents minimum protection standards and contains some errors and omissions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the NFPA-780 (1997) shortcomings and to summarize other lightning protection documents already peer-reviewed and in the literature.