...comply with this recommendation. A building structure with a two-hour fire-resistance rating is more than adequate to comply with this recommendation for office and residential portions of high-rise buildings."

Recommendation 9. NIST recommends the development of: (1) performance-based standards and code provisions, as an alternative to current prescriptive design methods, to enable the design and retrofit of structures to resist real building fire conditions, including their ability to achieve the performance objective of burnout without structural or local floor collapse: and (2) the tools, guidelines, and test methods necessary to evaluate the fire performance of the structure as a whole system.

Magnusson: "This is a good recommendation."

Schulte: "The incident at the World Trade Center towers demonstrated that the structural fire resistance of the tower structures was greater than the fire resistance of each individual structural component as measured by ASTM E119. The fire testing of the WTC floor construction last summer also demonstrated this. I suspect that this is the case for most high- rise buildings with a structural steel frame. In other words, it's my opinion that the results of the ASTM E119 test are very conservative."

Recommendation 10. NIST recommends the development and evaluation of new fire-resistive coating materials, systems, and technologies with significantly enhanced performance and durability to provide protection following major events.

Magnusson: "This is a good recommendation."

Schulte: "What NIST means by this isn't exactly clear. Just exactly what is a major event-another 9/11 incident? This NIST recommendation appears to suggest that buildings be designed to withstand another 9/11 incident without actually stating so."

Recommendation 11. NIST recommends that the performance and suitability of advanced structural steel, reinforced and pre-stressed concrete, and other high-performance material systems should be evaluated for use under conditions expected in building fires.

Magnusson: "This is a good recommendation."

Schulte: "The typical fires which occur in office and residential occupancies will be less severe than the fire used in the ASTM E119 test. Hence, testing and rating per ASTM E119 is a more severe test of structural fire resistance."

Group 4. Improved Active Fire Protection

Active fire protection systems (i.e., sprinklers, standpipes/hoses, fire alarms, and smoke management systems) should be enhanced through improvements to design, performance, reliability, and redundancy of such systems.

Recommendation 12. NIST recommends that the performance and redundancy of active fire protection systems (sprinklers, standpipes/hoses, fire alarms, and smoke management systems) in buildings should be enhanced to accommodate the greater risks associated with increasing building height and population, increased use of open spaces, available compartmentation, high-risk building activities, fire department response limits, transient fuel loads, and higher threat profile.

Magnusson: "Sprinkler design already considers fires in high-rise buildings. Their fire safety record is excellent. NIST has provided no data to demonstrate a need for change in the current standards. As all the sprinkler main and branch lines...