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The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) recently issued a safety bulletin warning of the hazards of conducting hot work in a variety of industries. The bulletin provides seven key lessons aimed at preventing worker deaths during hot work in and around storage tanks containing flammable materials.

Hot work is defined as any work activity that involves burning, welding, cutting, brazing, grinding, soldering, or similar spark-producing operations that can ignite a flammable atmosphere.

CSB began investigating hot work hazards following an explosion that occurred on July 29, 2008, at the Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) corrugated cardboard mill in Tomahawk, WI, which killed three maintenance workers and injured another. CSB determined the explosion resulted from welding above an 80-foot-tall storage tank that contained highly flammable hydrogen gas—the product of bacterial decomposition of organic fiber waste inside the tank.

At the time of the accident, PCA did not recognize waste fiber tanks as potentially hazardous or require combustible gas monitoring prior to welding nearby. PCA, which fully cooperated with the CSB investigation, subsequently developed new company standards requiring gas monitoring before any hot work.

Read the full story at: ohsonline.com

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