What's on the ICC F3 Fire Plans Examiner Exam? All 5 Domains
Sixty open-book questions across five weighted domains, and more than a third of the paper sits in a single one. The full published weighting.
Contents
What's on the ICC F3 Fire Plans Examiner Exam? All 5 Domains
The format
| Questions | 60 |
| Time | 3.5 hours |
| Book policy | Open - you bring your own references |
| Delivery | ICC PRONTO remote proctoring, or a Pearson VUE test centre |
Three and a half hours for sixty questions is unusually generous, at over three minutes each. That is deliberate: F3 is a lookup exam, and the time budget assumes you are opening books.
The five domains, by weight
| Domain | Weight | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Fire Protection | 35% | NFPA 13, NFPA 72, IFC |
| Egress Safety | 25% | IBC means-of-egress chapter |
| Hazardous Materials | 20% | IFC |
| Occupancy | 15% | IBC |
| Administration | 5% | IFC Chapter 1 |
Fire protection is more than a third of the paper
Thirty-five percent in one domain is the most concentrated weighting in the ICC fire family. Within it, the two system-design tasks alone account for 23 of the 35 points, meaning roughly a quarter of the whole exam is sprinkler and fire alarm plan review against NFPA 13 and NFPA 72.
If you are coming from a building-code background, that is the gap to close. If you are coming from fire protection, the 40% made up of egress and occupancy is yours.
The editions matter
F3 tests the 2021 code cycle: 2021 IBC, 2021 IFC, NFPA 13-2019 and NFPA 72-2019. Note that the NFPA editions are older than the I-codes. Candidates who study from a current NFPA 13 will hit renumbered sections, because the 2019 and 2022 editions do not line up.
Where to start
Work the heaviest domain first and check yourself against the weighting, not against how interesting the material is. The published percentages are the closest thing to an answer key you get before exam day.
Our free 10-question practice test draws from the same weighted pool, so the mix you see is the mix the exam uses.
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