The Star-Ledger

NEW YORK — The city's first major revision to its fire code in more than 80 years requires big restaurants and department stores to have fire plans for the first time and sets rules for how to store hazardous chemicals.

The 471-page draft, posted yesterday on the fire department's Web site for public comment, was to be paired with an overhaul of the city's building code enacted earlier this year.

While the building code changes drew from lessons about evacuations and fire safety learned from Sept. 11, 2001, fire officials were also responding to events like the 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire and a 2002 Manhattan building explosion.

Federal investigators of the 2002 blast, which injured dozens of people at the Kaltech Industries signmaking plant, recommended an overhaul of the code. The blast had erupted in the basement, where the company was mixing chemicals including nitric acid and lacquer thinner.

The proposed changes to the code require businesses to let the fire department know where and how they are storing a long list of flammable chemicals including gasoline, diesel fuel and chemicals used at nail salons and dry cleaners.

The new code is needed to control hazardous chemicals, said William E. Wright, interim executive of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Adopting the code "will make New York a safer place to work and live," he said. 

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