Page 45 - Occupational Health & Safety, April 2019

ard assessment before PPE is selected and training of workers begins. Once they are trained, workers should understand what PPE is needed and when, its limitations, and proper care and maintenance of their protective equipment.
The AWS Z49.1-88 Standard, Safe- ty in Welding and Cutting and Allied Processes, is another important stan- dard. It covers all aspects of safety and health for welding operations and is available from the 100-year-old Ameri- can Welding Society, www.aws.org.
Fire and Shock Hazards
OSHA lists these as the basic precautions for fire prevention when performing hot work:
■ Perform hot work in a safe location or with the fire hazards removed or covered. ■ Use guards to confine the heat, sparks, and slag and to protect fire hazards
that cannot be moved.
Welding and other types of hot work
should not be done where flammable va- pors or combustible materials exist, and both the work and the equipment being used by the welder(s) should be placed outside any hazardous area, according to OSHA. The 1910.252 standard says per- sonnel should act as a fire watch while hot work is being done in locations where:
■ appreciable combustible material— building construction or contents—is clos- er than 35 feet from the work
■ appreciable combustible material is more than 35 feet away but is easily ignited by sparks
■ wall or floor openings within a 35- foot radius will expose combustible mate- rials in adjacent areas, including concealed locations in walls or floors
■ combustible materials are adjacent to the opposite side of metal partitions, walls, ceilings, or roofs and are likely to be ignited
The standard also says fire watch per- sonnel must:
■ have fire extinguishing equipment readily available and have been trained on how it is used
■ know how to sound an alarm in case of a fire
■ watch for fires in all exposed areas, but try to extinguish them only when they are “obviously” within the capacity of the extinguishing equipment that is available; if
not, they should sound the alarm
■ maintain the fire watch for at least 30 minutes after welding or cutting is com- pleted, in order to detect and extinguish
possible smoldering fires
Most welding equipment has a voltage
that presents a risk of electric shock. The OSHA page titled “Controlling Electri- cal Hazards” (https://www.osha.gov/Pub- lications/3075.html) is a good resource for understanding the causes of electric shock and how to protect workers from electrical hazards through equipment de-energization, PPE, training, and work
practices—including keeping electric tools properly maintained and using the appropriate PPE.
Jerry Laws is the editor of Occupational Health & Safety.
REFERENCES
1. http://ecd.cpwrconstructionsolutions.org/ 2. https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA_
FS-3647_Welding.html
3. https://safetyequipment.org/product/ ansiisea-z87-1-2015/
www.ohsonline.com
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