Arkansas

Statewide summary — confirm with your building department before designing

No value on this row was changed by this audit, but seismic design category B is not usable statewide. Arkansas spans nearly the full seismic range because of the New Madrid seismic zone in the northeast. Using USGS ASCE 7-16 values for Site Class D and Risk Category II, short period design acceleration is about 0.17 g at Fayetteville and Springdale and 0.25 g at Hot Springs, which is category B; about 0.38 g at Little Rock and 0.45 g at Conway, which is category C; about 0.78 g at Jonesboro and West Memphis, which is category D; and about 1.7 g at Blytheville with a one second acceleration above 0.75 g, which is category E. The stored B is at best the northwest Arkansas value. It understates the requirement for Little Rock and grossly understates Craighead, Mississippi and Crittenden counties, where a house braced to category B would be badly under designed. Anyone building in northeast Arkansas must obtain a site specific seismic design category. The 105 mph wind speed is an ASCE 7 ultimate design wind speed for Risk Category II. Termite risk of heavy corresponds to the compound moderate to heavy band of the IRC map. Frost depth, ground snow load and winter design temperature were not independently verified in this audit. 2026-08-12 snow-load audit. Arkansas publishes no ground snow load, so min and max are left NULL. Residential construction in Arkansas is governed by the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code, Volume III - Residential, promulgated by the Division of Arkansas State Police within the Department of Public Safety under A.C.A. 12-13-105; Volume III is the state's rendering of the International Residential Code, and the 2021 edition is the current one. The complete promulgated rules-changes document, which sets out every Arkansas modification to the model code with deletions struck through and additions underlined, was read in full. Its Volume III Chapter 3 amendments begin at Section R302.1, Exterior Walls. There is no amendment to Section R301.2 and no amendment to Table R301.2(1), the Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria table. Arkansas therefore leaves that table exactly as the model code presents it, which is blank with footnotes instructing the jurisdiction to fill it in. The state fixes no ground snow load, no range and no county schedule; the operative number is whatever the adopting city or county enters. Two official hosts were blocked while trying to reach the compiled Volume III rather than the rules-changes document, and neither was worked around. The Department of Public Safety site, dps.arkansas.gov, returned HTTP 403 for its hosted fire prevention code PDFs, and codes.iccsafe.org returned HTTP 403 as expected. The 2008 Arkansas Fire Prevention Code rules changes published in the Arkansas Register by the Secretary of State were retrieved successfully and also contain no reference to snow load or to Section R301.2, which is consistent across editions. Nothing on this row was changed by this pass. The stored ground snow load of 5 psf, wind speed of 105 mph, seismic design category B and frost depth of 12 inches are all derived rather than state-published, since Arkansas adopts no table that states any of them; the serious understatement of seismic demand in northeast Arkansas described above stands unaltered and remains the most important caveat on this row.