Fire code submittals for battery storage sites

What the fire code official reviews

On a battery storage site, the fire code official, often the county fire marshal, reviews how fire apparatus reach your site and where firefighting water comes from. Your EPC designs the site, but this approval sits with you, and it is often the answer that moves your budget.

Why the review looks hard at the build

Of battery storage failures where the system's age is known, 72% happened during construction, commissioning or the first two years of operation, and integration, assembly and construction is the most common root cause (EPRI, BESS Failure Incident Database: Analysis of Failure Root Cause, 2024 (opens in a new tab); global data, 26 incidents with an assigned root cause). So the fire code official wants access and water settled before you build, not after.

Who does what

• We design the apparatus access from the public road, the water supply and the site civil work it depends on, and assemble the submittal.
• Your EPC designs the fenced area and its NFPA 855 design.
• We do not do the NFPA 855 design. Our seal covers only what we designed.

When to start

As soon as you control the site, ideally with a site assessment. The water answer can be a hydrant, a tap or a tank, and it depends on who reviews it: on one Texas site this year, the ask moved from a dry hydrant to a 30,000-gallon tank. Get the fire marshal's answer in writing before your budget is set. We flag that cost as early as the agencies will commit to it.

What we do

1. Identify the fire code official and the fire code that jurisdiction adopted.
2. Find the water supply. Where a water system reaches the site, we check what it can deliver and design the tap. Where no fire flow supply exists, we run an NFPA 1142 water supply calculation.
3. Design the apparatus access from the public road to your site.
4. Collect your EPC's NFPA 855 design and assemble it with our sheets and calculations.
5. Submit and answer the fire code official's comments.

What you get

• The fire code submittal, assembled with your EPC's NFPA 855 design.
• Sealed access and water supply design for the work we designed.
• The water supply calculation or fire flow check behind it.
• Written responses to review, and a written status every week until it is approved.

Work like this

On a storage site in Guadalupe County, Texas (2026), the water provider had no water for fire flow. We ran an NFPA 1142 water supply calculation: a 30,000-gallon tank, approved. On our latest Texas battery site, the fire marshal approved the submittal 17 days after we made it (October 2026).

What affects time and cost

• The water answer. A hydrant, a tap or a tank. Water supply construction is quoted separately once the requirement is known.
• Your EPC's documents. Our package takes 2 to 3 weeks from when we receive your EPC's fenced design and NFPA 855 and UL 9540A documents.
• The fire code official. Review time is theirs. We commit our production times; agency review times are not ours to promise.

The fire code submittal is part of one battery storage permitting scope with one fee, alongside your driveway, drainage, plat and stormwater documentation.