Document: NUREG-0800
Document ID: 05a851a6-07ff-41b4-8528-a032ba433e04
Document Type: srp
Title: FIRE PROTECTION PROGRAM
Source: NUREG-0800
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0327/ML032740044.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 9
Section ID: 9.5.1
CFR Part: 
CFR Title: 

Content:
actor Regulation, determined that a licensee has made a prima facie showing of a sound technical basis for such an assertion, then the Revision 4 - October 2003 7 implementation dates of the rule were delayed until final Commission action on the exemption request. Appendix R to 10 CFR Part 50 and 10 CFR Part 50.48 became effective on February 17, 1981. During the initial backfit of the fire protection regulations, the NRC approved a large number of plant-specific exemptions (i.e., alternative methods to achieve the underlying purpose of the regulation) at about 60 nuclear power plants. Since the mid-1980s, as licensees’ programs became more compliant with the fire protection regulations, the number of exemptions requested and approved has decreased. Even so, the ongoing review of licensee fire protection programs, the licensee efforts to save costs while maintaining an acceptable level of safety, and the emergence of additional technical issues (such as the deliberations over the adequacy of Thermo-Lag as a fire protection barrier) have resulted in several hundred exemptions to specific elements of the NRC fire protection requirements. This progression, the broad provisions of the general design criterion, the detailed implementing guidance, the plant-by-plant review, and finally the issuance and backfit of the fire protection regulations and the prescriptive requirements of Appendix R resulted in a complex regulatory framework for fire protection in U.S. nuclear power plants licensed prior to 1979, and have resulted in the issuance of a number of additional guidelines, clarifications, and interpretations, primarily as generic letters. Plants licensed after January 1, 1979, were not required to meet the provisions of Appendix R. These plants were typically reviewed to the guidelines of Standard Review Plan (NUREG-0800) Section 9.5.1, which subsumed the criteria specified in Appendix R. In July 1981, the NRC issued a major revision to NUREG-0800 for use in review