Safety Perspectives From the Dallas Region: Staying Safe During Texas Wildfire Season

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John Surma: Welcome back to the Dallas Regional OSHA Safety podcast. My name is John Surma, I’m here today with my Dallas partner Frank D. Davis. Frank, how are you today?

Frank Davis: I’m doing good, John. Thanks. I’m glad we get to talk about this topic.

John Surma: Texas wildfires in particular, but wildfires in general. For a lot of the folks who don’t live in Texas, they might not be aware of the fact that this is kind of wildfire season for us, and it’s been wildfire season for us for a while. Right now, we’ve got the High Lonesome Fire up by Dalhart that’s got about 18,000 acres burning. In Fredericksburg there’s the Crabapple Fire, which has got about 10,000 acres burning. Port Arthur has the Persimmon Fire, which is about 1600 acres. And then Conroe’s got the Ma Paulina Road Fire at about 1300 acres. And you can’t turn on a local news broadcast without hearing about wildfires popping up, a lot of them smaller 20, 30, 40 acres, but you’re hearing them all the time. And that’s largely due to the fact that we’ve got a lot of high wind warnings and dry conditions that are historically known for causing and contributing to wildfire conditions. We’ve got a prediction of a summer that’s going to be hotter and drier than normal, which is also indicative of an active wildfire season.
For those folks who remember back to the drought in 2011, we had hundreds of thousands of acres burn in Texas. You can still see the scars. If you go through Bastrop on your way from Houston to Austin, you can see that it’s recovered pretty well in the last 14 years, but you can see where there was pretty significant burning there. Certainly, we’ve seen in California and North Carolina how aggressive and destructive the wildfires can be. Some state plans, California and Washington in particular, have adopted wildfire or wildland smoke standards. Federal OSHA has not, but that doesn’t mean that federal OSHA doesn’t play a role in it. So Frank, let’s start off the discussion with the hazards that OSHA believes that employers should be mindful of when it comes to wildfire smoke and wildfires.

Frank Davis: Yeah, no thanks, John. So, as you know, every spring OSHA re-publishes, or re-links, or re-highlights, I should say, its webpage regarding wildfires or wildland fires. And begins with an analysis of what the exposures are to employees, well to humans in general, but of course OSHA focuses on employee exposures in the workplace. And the number one issue that they highlight is the exposure to smoke, which can contain chemicals and other hazardous materials, building materials like asbestos and other chemicals that are used in the workplace, stored in the workplace. They also reference heat, of course, you expect heat from a fire. They also talk about electrical exposures down power lines. I always find it interesting in any type of natural disaster how they remind us of pests like rodents and ants and snakes, how those animals get stirred up in times of wildfire and can be hazards to humans too. They tend to not be as noticeable. That’s what they start off. That’s the beginning of the discussion as far as OSHA’s concerned, is identifying the hazards. Right?

John Surma: Sure. And OSHA has some recommendations that employers engage in certain steps relative to preparedness, particularly as it relates to place of employment and facilities that are in areas that could be affected by wildland fire. Could you explain those to our audience, Frank?

Frank Davis: You bet. So, I’ll do a little background on me. John, I know you have a big old ranch down in south Texas because you’re a high rolling, big wheeling Texan, but I got a little place up in Colorado surrounded by pine trees up on the side of a mountain. And a few years ago, actually right before the big spring fire that came through the area, I’d begun clearing my land. We’ve got a couple acres and I’d begun clearing the land, because the recommendation from the fire team up there, the local fire department up there was to clear 30 to 60 feet of vegetation away from your house, so you’ve got a good buffer zone away from the property. And I did that.
The recommendation also was to remove low branches off of trees and to remove vegetation around the base of trees because that prevents fires from spreading up into the canopy of trees, and that’s especially important in environments where you’ve got tall trees like pine trees. East Texas, Bastrop, that was a big problem in Bastrop because they had the canopy fires back in 2011, they just had a hard time putting them out. And those recommendations, to clear 30 to 60 feet away from your property in an area that is exposed to wildland fires or wildfires like in the mountains or in heavily wooded areas, that’s reflected in OSHA’s guidance as well in terms of preparing the property for a catastrophic fire.

John Surma: Frank, now if a fire is approaching a facility that is a place of employment, OSHA also has some recommendations relative to activities that employers should be taking if there’s kind of an imminent danger of the fire approaching their facility. Would you mind explaining those to our audience for us?

Frank Davis: Where OSHA first addresses the issue is if you identify your workplace as one that is exposed to wildland fires or smoke associated with them, that the employer prepare and evacuation plan that includes certain specific activities. And what OSHA recommends on its webpage . . . and I say they recommend on their webpage. This is the type of information that OSHA will use to issue a general duty citation if ever it had to come out and do an inspection. The steps that they recommend is, one, identify the conditions that activate the evacuation plan, and then develop a chain of command in terms of who makes the decisions about evacuations and what everybody’s duties are during an evacuation. Identify emergency functions and who will perform them, and emergency functions can be a lot of different things. Of course, one is sounding the alarm. Two is announcing that it’s time to evacuate. Might be making sure that they’re shutting down critical equipment. Maybe it’s ensuring that any hazardous chemicals or hazardous materials are stored in a location that’s less susceptible to being ignited by a spreading fire.
Then they recommend specific evacuation procedures, including routes and exits. And those routes and exits presumably are beyond what you see in your typical emergency action plan, how to escape and gather outside of a facility, but actually routes and exits to escape the area to avoid an oncoming fire or smoke hazard. They also propose procedures for accounting for personnel, customers and visitors. I know many of our clients currently maintain visitor logs, and that’s certainly something that OSHA is considering as part of the accounting system for an evacuation plan or a wildfire response plan. They also talk about equipment for personnel, and I know we’ll talk about that in a little more detail here in a minute, John. And then always, always, always, OSHA wants to make sure the employers are doing a good job training employees, reviewing the plan with the workers and making sure that the workers know what’s expected of them in the event the evacuation plan must be implemented.

John Surma: And Frank, for clarity for our audience, we’re talking about sort of what I characterize as general industry or construction or oil field employers. We’re not talking about folks that are first responders or firefighters or others who are trained for purposes of responding to wildland fires. For years and years and years, I represented crop dusting aerial applicator, single engine air tanker company that did this type of work. I continue to represent firefighting companies that do this type of work. We’re not talking about those people, we’re talking about a manufacturing facility, a retail facility, an oil field facility, something like that. Correct?

Frank Davis: That’s right. We’re talking about non-firefighting personnel. We’re talking about individuals whose only job is to get out of harm’s way to leave room for the emergency responders to backfill and take care of the problem.

John Surma: Now does OSHA recommend, even for those non-emergency responders, non-firefighters, specific training or exercises to address their wildfire emergency action plan?

Frank Davis: Yeah, well that is a highlight that OSHA mentions multiple times in its guidance that you can find on OSHA’s website. But they want to ensure that all workers know what to do in case of an emergency involving a wildland fire, and they encourage employers to practice the evacuation plans on a regular basis and evaluate those evacuation plans to see how effective they are. And then to the extent that they’ve learned ways, they’ve identified issues in the evacuation plan that may make it less than the desired effective level. Poorly phrased, sorry for that. But they want the employer to update the plans and procedures based on the lessons learned from those exercises to get better.

John Surma: Frank, are there any concerns about HAZWOPER, hazardous waste operations, and emergency response requirements and wildland fires?

Frank Davis: Yeah, well you’ve always got the hazardous waste operations and emergency response if it’s going to be a workplace that’s involved in an emergency response operation involving the release of, or the likely release of, hazardous substances. And OSHA, again, directs employers to evaluate their own workplace and invites compliance with the applicable general industry standard under 1910.120.

John Surma: But OSHA is not suggesting when they include references to the HAZWOPER standard, they’re not suggesting that, for lack of a better term, the general industry employers actually engage in wildland firefighting activities. This is really dealing with whatever the employer has on site that may trigger those response type activities. Is that a fair assessment?

Frank Davis: That’s exactly right. Yeah. The standard isn’t . . . or not the standard, but OSHA’s discussion isn’t envisioning that employers in the path of a wildfire be prepared to fight that wildfire. What OSHA is reminding employers to do is to comply with the HAZWOPER standards regarding potential release or release of hazardous materials. That’s the entire scope of it, and the hazardous materials are the ones that OSHA’s referencing are the hazardous materials within the employer’s control.

John Surma: Well, thank you, Frank. Now is there a requirement that employers have, as part of their emergency action plan, an element that relates to wildfire, wildland fires?

Frank Davis: I think what OSHA invites everyone to do is to evaluate their obligations to maintain an emergency action plan under 29 CFR 1910.38, and that includes, of course, identifying procedures to report a fire or other emergencies. Again, procedures for emergency evacuation, including exit routes and assignments for rallying points so they can conduct a head count. Just as I mentioned a moment ago, what specific jobs and emergency functions employers will have, OSHA expects covered employers to have those procedures as part of their emergency action plan. And so there’s a lot of overlap between what OSHA expects under the emergency action plan standard, as well as what it generally recommends. So, to the extent that 1910.38 might not apply to everybody’s workplace that’s listening to this, OSHA seems to be putting on a belt and suspenders and saying, “But we would recommend that every employer that is in harm’s way engage in these activities to evaluate the proper response to a wildfire or smoke hazards.”

John Surma: Are there specific elements of the emergency action plan that you can talk about that may need to be adjusted or modified to address either wildfire smoke or wildfire itself?

Frank Davis: Yeah, so there’s two primary focuses in OSHA’s guidance with regard to response to wildfire. Number one is evacuate if possible, right? Grab your gear and run as soon as the threat’s detected. That’s number one. And so OSHA’s recommendations are pay attention to the weather and fire reports, and as soon as the employer thinks it’s smart, get out of dodge as it were. Then if an employer can’t evacuate, if it’s engulfed and it’s too quick, then they begin talking about sheltering in place and they reference FEMA guidance for that. And FEMA guidance talking about exposure to fire and air hazards, they suggest a couple of steps. One is to designate a room or an area within a workplace or a building that can be cut off from outside air and maintain portable air cleaner. I don’t know how I feel about that in general. It seems like a scary proposition to shelter in a building amidst a fire, but I guess if you don’t have an opportunity to evacuate, what are you left with? And again, because I have a place in the middle of a wildfire zone, I think about this kind of thing a lot.
FEMA also recommends that employers and residences alike prepare first aid kits. They also suggest N95 masks to protect against smoke inhalation. OSHA suggests you might consider other respiratory protection if there’s a possibility of exposure to hazardous materials that are not filtered by an N95, because there are some chemical hazards that an N95 simply doesn’t filter out. Both OSHA and FEMA also talk about evaluating whether it makes sense to have escape hoods, a type of respirator maybe has a self-contained air supply where employees can escape. I think about places like Austin, I lived in Austin for a long time and there were valleys and locations in Austin where you had one road in one road out. And during those fires, I was living in Austin during those fires, and there were times when it was just really hard to avoid the smoke. And if that’s a situation that an employer might find itself in, then evaluating the import of escape hoods might be appropriate for that employer.
Some other things that I’ve thought about independently that I maintain at my place up in Colorado that some of the firefighters working in that area thought were a good idea was just fire resistant clothing, fire blankets, and what I always called the shake and bake bags, the personnel survival bags that you can crawl inside of as the fire passes over. Those are other items to consider. But again, those are just things that firefighters I had conversations with, firefighters in and around the area of house up in Colorado that suggested might be good to have. So I’ve got them. I got a lot of them.

John Surma: Well, thank you, Frank. And the reality here is, at least in my opinion, it’s probably best that we get ahead of the fire situation and not stay until you get to the point where you need to throw on FRCs or be worrying about fire blankets or the “shake and bake bags.” But if something happens that is dire and unpredictable as wildfire often is, having that kind of last line in the sand to protect yourself is certainly better than the options. And certainly, employers do have under OSHA’s general duty clause, as well as other state and local requirements, an obligation to ensure the safety and health of their employees. So certainly, taking action as it relates to wildfires, particularly if you’re in an area that’s affected by them, which quite frankly is most of the state of Texas outside of the heavily metropolitan areas. Even in a lot of our heavy metropolitan areas, they’re still pockets where wildland fire can be an issue. Frank, I think you raised some really wonderful points for our audience. And as usual, it’s been a pleasure recording this with you. And to our audience, I extend a hearty thank you for joining us today.

Frank Davis: Thanks, John. Thanks everybody out there. Look forward to talking to you next time.

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