The holiday season is here and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is urging consumers to keep safety in mind as they decorate for the holidays. Flickering candles, blinking holiday lights, and fragrant evergreens are beautiful staples of the holiday season, but when used improperly, these holiday decorating "must haves" can pose deadly dangers.
The presentation, which includes slides, focuses on hot work and arc flash hazards and how to protect oneself against shock and arc flashes or blasts.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated that this method is about 35 percent better than adding conventional fire retardants to these foams used in upholstered furniture.
Talk of shifting FEMA back to an independent agency is short-sighted, the outgoing chief of DHS said in a bloggers' roundtable Dec. 9. He said unified response to disasters could be harmed, and DHS' structure is more cohesive than the public perceives.
After a follow-up inspection, OSHA issued the company seven failure to abate notices carrying $168,000 in proposed fines and then further issued the company one serious citation with a $1,500 fine for not medically evaluating employees' fitness to wear respirators.
The U.S. Fire Administration has completed a project with the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) to study what important areas of safety and technology discussed in the USFA manual Fire Department Communications Manual - A Basic Guide to System Concepts and Equipment (FA-160) needed to be updated or revised, as well as what topics and technology related to fire department communications not discussed in the manual needed to be added since its development in 1996.
The agency clarifies that a cylinder that contains 20.9 percent oxygen and 79.1 percent nitrogen, which is essentially compressed air, presents no greater oxidation hazard than that of the atmospheric air already present in the workplace and would therefore not be considered an oxygen cylinder or an oxidizing compressed gas for the purposes of 29 CFR 1910.101.
Three meetings this month in Rochester, Bemidji, and St. Paul will allow homebuilders and others to discuss potential changes to the building code with Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry Commissioner Steve Sviggum.
The association says that at other times when fuel costs have risen, it has seen a corresponding increase in heating-related fires, and with today's combination of much higher energy costs and much higher unemployment, "we fear that . . . more people who are unable to pay for heating oil or utilities [will] use more dangerous ways of heating their homes."
Located in the Pocono Mountains, the facility performs metal fabrication for the military and has approximately 589 full-time employees.
About 35 robots performed at a Texas facility as developers worked on creating a standard suite of performance tests to help evaluate mechanical rescuers. The tests, shown in this Texas Engineering Extension Service photo, were sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate.
ISO has issued a standard to provide the minimum performance requirements for protective clothing worn in situations where users may be exposed to radiant, convective or contact heat, flames, arc flashes and molten metal splashes.
This article is an attempt to briefly cover the most common differences between types of sprinkler systems. Most sprinkler systems fall within one of four categories.
Here it is December, and we’re talking about hot work. No, we aren’t talking about working when it’s hot—but, sometimes, we have to. We’re talking about working on equipment, making it hot, and having to be careful with the heat we generate and the surrounding environment.
Firefighting is one of the world’s most dangerous and highly regarded jobs. As kids, many of us want to be firefighters when we grow up—but few of us actually do it. For Larry Wilson, his respect for the job was motivation enough not only to become a wildland firefighter while in college, but also to take it a step further and become a smokejumper.
"OSHA relies on this committee to provide a real-world perspective to our work," said Thomas M. Stohler, acting assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.
In 2006, Thanksgiving Day topped the charts once again as the peak day for home cooking fires. According to National Fire Protection Association, there were 1,400 home structure fires involving cooking equipment that year, which is more than three times the daily average.
Finalized after "worldwide" comments, the report on the collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center building 7 in Manhattan concludes fires on multiple floors "caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down."
The latest grant listed by the Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. program was $7,500 last month to the volunteer Fort Washington Fire Company of Pennsylvania, which used it to buy new extrication equipment that was soon put to use.
Two requests for comments by Jan. 15 or 16 are important to users of SCBAs and other protective respirators, and to the manufacturers. NIOSH may create a new subpart to the 42 CFR Part 84 standard for the suits.