NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 54

SAFETY FIRST

Still Hot
HOT WORK FIRES CONTINUE TO OCCUR ON CONSTRUCTION SITES AND AT
PRIVATE HOMES. NFPA'S TRAINING IS HERE TO HELP. By Angelo Verzoni

SPARKS GENERATED FROM welding ignited at least six fires
in the United States and Canada during the last week in March
alone, according to various news reports. These fires claimed
one man's life, caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, and challenged the firefighting crews that responded.
" As soon as we got it under control, it started getting hotter and
hotter and hotter, " one firefighter who responded to a blaze
sparked by welding in Pompano Beach, Florida, told reporters
from 7 News Miami.
According to the NFPA report " Fires in Structures Under
Construction or Renovation, " published last year, welding and
other hot work activities are responsible for about 7 percent of
the fires that occur in buildings under construction in the US
each year and about 9 percent of fires in buildings under renovation-that's over one a day. Many more hot work fires occur
at private homes, often when homeowners take on renovation
projects themselves.
Since 2016, NFPA has offered an online certificate program
on hot work safety. NFPA developed the program following the
deaths of two Boston firefighters in a blaze sparked by hot work
in 2014, and since 2018 the state of Massachusetts has required
everyone who performs hot work to be certified. Experts hope
the program will continue to grow in the future.
" The NFPA Hot Work Safety Certificate Program is a great
way for communities and states to endorse and promote the
NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem, " said David Hollinger, director of fire and emergency services at Drexel University, who also
serves as the chair of the technical committee for NFPA 51B,
Standard for Fire Prevention During Welding, Cutting, and Other
Hot Work.
Hollinger said he hopes jurisdictions will follow the lead of
Boston and Massachusetts in embracing the training. " It's a
ready-made certification model that authorities having jurisdiction can adopt to reduce community risk, " he said. " It assists

in mitigating loss of life and property and can be used by a
multitude of stakeholders to safeguard worksites. "
In 2018, Hollinger, alongside NFPA 51B staff liaison Laura
Moreno, delivered a presentation on hot work safety at NFPA's
annual Conference & Expo. One thing he discovered in creating
the presentation is that fires aren't the only problem associated
with hot work-workers who are simply not being educated
about fire safety can burden communities' emergency response systems. " Fire departments routinely have to respond
to incidents as a result of hot work operations failing to meet
compliance, " Hollinger said.
The hot work safety training teaches participants about the
key requirements found in NFPA 51B, including the need to keep
combustible materials from wood and roofing materials to paint
and cleaning solvents away from hot work areas. In an article
published in NFPA Journal in 2017, former NFPA engineer Guy
Colonna discussed some of the common hot work misconceptions he had encountered having led about 40 trainings at
the time. One was that the hazard goes away once hot work
operations stop.
" The truth [is] NFPA 51B and other hot work safety practices
require someone-normally a trained fire watch-to remain at
the work site for a minimum of 30 minutes after hot work has
stopped to monitor the site for any smoldering conditions or reignition from hot embers or retained heat, " Colonna wrote. " And
heat has a way of sticking around. Insurance data indicates that
retained heat has contributed to reignition conditions up to four
hours after the hot work was performed. "
A one-hour presentation on hot work safety is slated for " The
Big Wide World of Building and Life Safety " event on June 22,
part of NFPA's 125th Anniversary Conference Series. Information on the event is available at nfpa.org/conferenceseries, and
more information about NFPA's Hot Work Safety Certificate
Program can be found at nfpa.org/hotwork.

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NFPA Journal - Summer 2021

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