OSHA expands protections for emergency workers with proposed "Emergency Response" standard

Emergency response workers in America face considerable occupational health and safety hazards in dynamic and unpredictable work environments. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recognized the need for a comprehensive, up-to-date emergency response standard to address the full range of job hazards faced by today's emergency responders.

On Dec. 21, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that OSHA will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking later this month to modernize the agency's "Fire Brigades" standard (29 CFR 1910.156), which has only had minor updates since it was first published in 1980.

The Fire Brigades standard currently applies to a narrow audience of workers, namely, fire brigades, industrial fire departments and private or contractual fire departments. This standard was originally intended to be used by employers who have a subset of employees assigned to fight fire in the early stages while waiting for their jurisdiction's fire department to arrive on scene. These employees do not necessarily perform emergency response functions as part of their regular, everyday jobs.

OSHA intends to use the "Fire Brigades" standard as a baseline for a significant update to OSHA 1910.156, which would be re-titled, "Emergency Response". The new standard would apply to a much broader audience of emergency workers and would address a much broader range of occupational hazards.

OSHA has just published an unofficial draft of the proposed rule for review. OSHA's proposed rule would update 29 CFR 1910.156 so that it applies to firefighters (both structural and wildland), emergency medical service providers, and technical search and rescue workers. OSHA estimates that about 1 million emergency response workers would fall into the scope of the proposed rule. While OSHA standards apply only to employees and therefore do not apply to most volunteer responders, volunteers may be treated as employees under some states' laws. OSHA estimates that about 300,000 volunteer responders would fall within the scope of this proposed rule.

Notably, OSHA's proposed standard would bring OSHA 1910.156 into alignment with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) National Response Framework and the National Incident Management System (NIMS). It would modernize the standard to align with the current industry consensus standards issued by the National Fire Protection Association on the safe conduct of emergency response activities. The proposal includes major changes for protective clothing and equipment and significant improvements in safety and health practices that the industry generally accepts as standard procedures.

OSHA notes that the proposed rule is a "performance-based" standard, providing flexibility for affected employers to establish the specific criteria that best suits their organization. OSHA intends the performance-based nature of the proposed rule to be beneficial to small and volunteer organizations with limited resources.

OSHA has established a dedicated web page for the Emergency Response Ruling where the link to the official draft in the Federal Register and instructions for submitting comments will be made available in the coming weeks. OSHA may schedule an informal public hearing on the proposed rule if requested during the comment period.

(Source: OSHA)