Mass Notification Updates: What’s New in NFPA 72 (2025)
NFPA 72 (2025) introduces important updates to Mass Notification Systems (MNS/ECS), strengthening requirements for intelligibility, survivability, and system integration. These changes directly impact schools, hospitals, industrial facilities, and large campuses across Louisiana.
Here are the key updates every designer, contractor, and building owner should know:
🔹 1. Enhanced Voice Intelligibility Requirements
Chapter 24 clarifies signal-to-noise ratios, speaker placement, and testing procedures to ensure messages are understood in high-noise or acoustically challenging environments.
🔹 2. Updated Pathway Survivability for ECS Circuits
Critical communication pathways must now meet Level 2 or Level 3 survivability (§12.4.3–12.4.4), ensuring messages remain functional during fire conditions or partial system damage.
🔹 3. Stronger Integration Requirements
NFPA 72 expands guidance for integration with:
• Building Management Systems
• Paging / public address systems
• Distributed audio platforms
• Remote-access communication nodes
This ensures consistent, reliable messaging across multiple systems and communication channels.
🔹 4. Clearer Rules for Relocation vs. Evacuation Messaging
Updated definitions and documentation requirements help avoid confusion during multi-stage emergencies — especially in high-risk environments like petrochemical plants, hospitals, and universities.
🔹 5. Expanded Testing & Documentation Requirements
Commissioning documents, intelligibility tests, and ECS-specific ITM records are now held to higher standards for accuracy and traceability.
Mass Notification Systems are critical to occupant safety — and these updates ensure they perform when communication matters most.
At Capitol City Fire Protection & Life Safety, LLC, we design, install, and maintain MNS/ECS systems that meet NFPA 72 (2025) and Louisiana Fire Marshal requirements.
📞 (225) 242-9215
🌐 www.capitolcityfire.com
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