Floor Sander Dies When Wood Floor Refinish Product Ignites - Massachusetts

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Massachusetts Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Project (Massachusetts FACE) ; Massachusetts. Department of Public Health
• Description:
  On July 2, 2005, a 43-year-old floor sander (the victim) was fatally injured when the one story single family house he was working in caught fire. The victim and a co-worker had just finished installing hardwood floors and were finishing them. The incident occurred when the flammable lacquer floor sealer that they were applying ignited, causing the house to catch fire. Calls were placed to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and the fire department. Within minutes, EMS and fire department personnel arrived at the site to attend to the victim and control the fire. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The co-worker was able to exit the house without injuries. The Massachusetts FACE Program concluded that to prevent similar occurrences in the future, employers should: 1. Use wood floor finishing products that are less flammable (products with flash points greater than 100 degrees F) for indoor applications. 2. Ensure that work areas are adequately ventilated during indoor application of wood floor finishing products. 3. Ensure that ignition sources including gas pilot lights are extinguished prior to beginning work. 4. Conduct job hazard analyses and implement and enforce a safety checklist to be completed prior to beginning work. 5. Develop, implement, and enforce a written hazard communication program that includes training employees about the chemicals they work with and the associated hazards and controls of these chemicals. The wood floor finishing industry and other stakeholders, such as contractors, insurance companies, and government agencies should: 6. Educate consumers about the hazards associated with finishing wood floors and actions that can be taken to minimize these hazards, such as the use of less flammable floor finishing products. Homeowners finishing wood floors themselves or through hired contractors should: 7. Ensure that only less flammable floor finishing products (products with flash points greater than 100 degrees F) are used inside their homes. In addition, policymakers should: 8. Consider developing regulatory approaches to minimize the risk of fires and explosions during wood floor finishing.
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Fires Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Staff Development Wood Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Fire-hazards Flammable-liquids Injuries Injury-prevention OSHA Region 1 Protective-measures Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-monitoring Training Traumatic-injuries Wood-products Work-analysis Work-areas Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices

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• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Foreign Born Workers
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE05MA044
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-10
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20030062
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2006-109774
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 05MA044, 2006 Mar ; :1-7
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2006
• Performing Organization:
  Massachusetts Department of Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1992/09/30
• End Date:
  2006/08/31
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:a42098039616a6292de7a9fa65d8e98d2946ce0c1f3761a54ebc94daacb5640a47d2de8f0a058071f964a75f32424d8a2560b3fb580856f37c837150ecd6ce94
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/166343/cdc_166343_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 41.44 KB ]