Wildfire smoke exposure and heat-related illnesses like heat stroke are recognized occupational health hazards. Are you doing all you can to protect your employees from these summertime risks?
While there are no federal standards for heat illness prevention or wildfire smoke exposure, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has a rulemaking to establish a heat illness prevention standard for both indoor and outdoor workplaces. The agency also has an ongoing national emphasis program (NEP) for heat illness prevention that relies on OSHA’s authority under the General Duty Clause of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act.
OSHA launched its indoor and outdoor heat-related hazards NEP in April 2022, and last year, OSHA regional offices across the country—Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota—reminded employers they need to protect workers from the hazards of excessive heat.
When Canadian wildfires recently led to unhealthy particulate matter air pollution in parts of the United States, OSHA urged employers to protect outdoor workers from the hazards of poor air quality.
California and Oregon both have permanent heat illness prevention and wildfire smoke standards.
OSHA heat enforcement
Under OSHA’s NEP, the agency’s area offices will initiate inspections at both indoor and outdoor workplaces in over 70 industries identified as “high risk” whenever the National Weather Service issues a heat warning or an advisory for a local area. The NEP targets industries in the agricultural, construction, and manufacturing sectors, as well as automobile dealerships, the postal service, and freight and rail transportation.
OSHA compliance safety and health officers (CSHOs) can conduct self-referred inspections whenever workers in plain view are at risk. CSHOs have been instructed to remain vigilant during their daily travel for workers at risk. Area offices can also act on referrals from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD).
During a heat-related inspection, an agency inspector will:
- Review your OSHA 300 injury and illness logs and 301 incident reports for entries that indicate heat-related illnesses among your workers.
- Review any records of heat-related emergency room visits and/or ambulance transport without hospitalization.
- Interview your workers on-site for symptoms of dehydration, dizziness, fainting, headache, or other conditions that may indicate heat-related illnesses.
- Determine if you have a heat illness and injury program.
An OSHA inspector will review your heat illness and injury prevention program, if you have one, examining your employee training program on heat illness signs, prevention, and the importance of hydration; whether you’ve instructed your employees to report signs and symptoms of heat illness; and your procedures for providing first aid and contacting emergency personnel if a heat illness occurs.
An agency inspector may also ask you a series of questions about any prevention program, such as:
- Do you have a formal, written heat illness prevention program?
- Does your program include heat-acclimatization periods for new workers and those returning from time away from work?
- How do you and your supervisors monitor ambient temperatures and levels of work exertion at your worksites?
- Is unlimited cool water easily accessible to all your employees?
- Do your employees have scheduled rest breaks, with access to shaded areas, and does your program require additional breaks for hydration?
- Do you use administrative controls like earlier start times and employee/job rotation to limit heat exposure?
- Is there a “buddy” system of worker observation used on especially hot days?
In addition to the heat NEP, OSHA’s Region 3 has a regional emphasis program (REP) for warehouse operations in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia focused on ergonomic and heat hazards.
OSHA citations challenged, vacated
Earlier this year, the review commission vacated four OSHA heat exposure citations of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The agency had alleged that letter carriers in Benton, Arkansas; Houston and San Antonio, Texas; and Martinsburg, West Virginia, had been exposed to excessive heat.
In each of the cases, a letter carrier began feeling ill while delivering mail and was treated at a hospital or an urgent care clinic. OSHA cited the USPS under the OSH Act’s General Duty Clause. The commissioners didn’t question whether heat hazards existed but found fault with OSHA’s recommended abatement measures.
The review commission applies a four-pronged test in reviewing General Duty Clause citations. OSHA must show that:
- “A condition or activity in the workplace presented a hazard.”
- “The employer or its industry recognized this hazard.”
- “The hazard was likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”
- “A feasible and effective means existed to eliminate or materially reduce the hazard.”
The review commission vacated OSHA’s citations of the USPS because the citations failed the last test. The agency had recommended time-based interventions like acclimatization, reducing outdoor exposure times, and work/rest cycles, which the review commission found infeasible, given the USPS’s precarious financial position.
The commissioners relied on statements from USPS officials, a government task force, and Government Accountability Office (GAO) findings that the USPS is at “high risk” and financially unsustainable.
The commissioners sent a fifth case back to a review commission administrative law judge (ALJ), concluding that a Des Moines, Iowa, postal station failed to provide heat safety training for its city carrier assistants (CCAs).
The review commission has vacated OSHA heat illness citations before the USPS cases.
In 2019, the commission vacated OSHA’s General Duty Clause citation of a roofing contractor following a worker fatality. The commissioners chastised the agency for using the General Duty Clause as a “gotcha” or “catchall” for hazards with no established standards.
A temporary employee of A.H. Sturgill Roofing, Inc., collapsed while working on a roofing project and later died. The employee, a 60-year-old man with preexisting conditions, including congestive heart failure and hepatitis C, collapsed and began shaking while on the job. The man was diagnosed with heatstroke at a hospital and died 3 weeks later.
OSHA cited Sturgill Roofing for a violation of the General Duty Clause, alleging that Sturgill exposed the employee to “excessive heat while working on a commercial roof in the direct sun.”
The commissioners disputed OSHA’s conclusion that an excessive heat hazard existed at the time of the worker’s collapse. The temperature was approximately 72°F, with 84% relative humidity, when work began. When the worker collapsed, the temperature was approximately 82°F, with 51% relative humidity.
The commissioners also acknowledged employers’ difficulty in addressing hazards like excessive heat when there are no established federal standards. They pointed out that the rulemaking process itself gives employers proper notice of their obligations in the workplace.
Your smoke and heat responses
You should monitor local media or weather and emergency management apps (from the American Red Cross or Federal Emergency Management Agency, for example) for National Weather Service air quality alerts and heat advisories.
If you have employees who spend significant amounts of time working outdoors, like groundskeepers, landscapers, or security guards, you should take steps to prevent heat illness. You may also need a heat illness prevention program if you have employees using un-air-conditioned vehicles for transportation and delivery services.
Controlling heat illness risks relies on readily available rest, shade, and water.
During periods of excessive heat, your workers may need more frequent breaks in shaded areas or air-conditioned vehicles. They also need drinking water. For example, California’s heat illness prevention standard requires employers to provide enough fresh, pure, and suitably cool drinking water free of charge so each worker at an outdoor worksite can drink at least 1 quart per hour.
As this month’s air quality alerts in the Midwest and Northeast demonstrate, exposure to wildfire smoke is an increasingly common workplace hazard across the country. Interventions for wildfire smoke include moving worksites or moving work indoors or postponing outdoor tasks or projects until air quality improves. Workers may need to use respiratory protection if work can’t be moved or postponed.
The requirements of California’s and Oregon’s wildfire smoke standards may offer guidelines for protecting your workers.
Under California’s standard, employers must take action to protect employees when the Air Quality Index (AQI) for PM2.5 is 151 or greater. Steps required under the standard include modifying the workplace or work procedures to reduce wildfire smoke exposures and providing respiratory protection—N95, N99, N100, R95, P95, P99, or P100 respirators—for voluntary use. If the AQI for PM2.5 exceeds 500 due to wildfire smoke, respirator use is required. California employers must ensure their workers use respirators and that respirator use complies with the state’s respiratory protection program standard, including requirements for medical evaluation, fit testing, and training.
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (Oregon OSHA) adopted a wildfire smoke standard last year. Under the Oregon standard, employers must implement engineering and administrative controls to reduce exposures and provide filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) at no cost to employees. Respirator use is required when the AQI for PM2.5 is 501 or higher.
Developing a federal heat standard
You should start preparing now for the day you must comply with a federal heat illness prevention standard.
OSHA took its first step in developing a federal heat stress standard for outdoor and indoor work settings on October 27, 2021, issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM). The ANPRM contained no proposed regulatory text but a series of 114 questions about a potential standard.
The agency expressed interest in public input on the scope and application of a potential standard and what types of controls a standard should require.
OSHA also expressed interest in successful employer heat injury and illness prevention programs and the effectiveness of engineering and administrative controls, acclimatization protocols, and monitoring methods, as well as best practices for heat-related emergencies.
Analyses of heat-related enforcement found that while 80% of heat-related fatalities occur in outdoor work environments, according to OSHA, 61% of cases of nonfatal heat-related illness occurred during or after work in indoor workplaces. OSHA has conducted at least 1 heat-related inspection in over 230 industries across indoor and outdoor work settings, the agency reported. A federal standard could even apply to small businesses; an assessment of workplace heat-related fatalities found that almost half occurred in “very small establishments” with fewer than 10 employees.
There is no OSHA rulemaking for a wildfire smoke exposure standard.