Engineering Plans Review

Department Resources

Related Resources

Commercial Fire Plans Submission Checklist - effective September 7, 2020

Please read the letter to industry regarding the requirement for a Commercial Fire Plans Submission Checklist.

The Engineering Plans Review Branch reviews fire alarm, building, sprinkler, tank, range hood, site and other plans for conformance to the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC), the Statewide Fire Prevention Code (SFPC or a.k.a. Fire Prevention Code), the Fairfax County Fire Prevention Code, Public Facilities Manual (PFM) Chapter 9 and NFPA Standards. Plans Review provides code interpretation for the building industry and general public on plans for new construction, renovations or modifications of sites, buildings, building tenants and fire protection systems.

Over 25 different plan types are reviewed that directly affect life safety. Visit the Plans Review Inventory area of our website to view the number of plans on-hand and their lag time for the past week.

	Office of the Fire Marshal Plan Review Metrics
March 2024
Review Type	Total Plans on Hand (Average)	Weekly Average Queue Days	Monthly Average Queue Days	3-Month Rolling Average Queue Days
Sprinkler Review
Shell Building	8.0	20.2	24.3	23.0
Tenant with calculations	7.8	21.8	14.9	14.5
Tenant w/out calculations	9.4	2.6	2.0	3.4
Fire Alarm Review
Shell Building	5.0	20.0	17.3	21.5
Tenant	17.0	4.0	6.2	4.9
Architectural Review
Class 4 and greater	17.6	11.2	7.7	10.9
Site	11.4	11.6	8.6	9.3