-Carola Mittag
Last October I wrote about roofers. (You will have to push the ‘back’ button about eleven times at the bottom of the Blog page to take you to my Blog Just Walking By.)
Whether writing about roofers last October was a coincidence or a foreboding that something roofing-related was about to happen, I will never know.
On November 2nd, the training facility and home to all of Mentor’s safety training equipment came under fire, literally. I am happy to say that there were no injuries or worse; however, I want to outline the impact this event had to all parties involved.
Of course it is important to get to the root cause of this fire. On that day, roofers were replacing a flat-roof top using torches to heat the materials needed to create the vapour barrier. From videos I have watched, flat-roof installation is a labour-intensive process with many inherent hazards. How ever it happened, the root cause and blame needed to be determined as the facility owners and insurance companies had to reach an agreement as to who was responsible. There are so many “could have beens” that must be considered.
From Mentor’s health and safety standpoint, the following questions arose:
- Did the roofing company have a safety plan and procedures for the work to be done?
- Were the roofers trained on correct roofing procedures, the correct use of equipment, personal protective equipment (PPE) and materials?
- When the fire was detected, what safety protocol was in place for the roofers to follow?
- Who was responsible for calling for help?
- Was there a meeting place for the roofers to congregate once they descended from the roof to account for the presence of all workers?
When firefighters arrived, they were able to get the fire under control, but not before significant smoke and material damage had occurred. Here are some of the things the firefighters had to consider before entering the building:
- Was everyone on-site accounted for?
- What risks were present in the event that the fire couldn’t be contained and spread to neighbouring industrial units? (As it happened, an adjacent unit stored chemicals, a major and potentially hazardous situation.)
- Did all the industrial units have their safety binders with their safety data sheets readily available?
- Who was the spokesperson for: the roofing company, the occupants of the industrial units, anyone else with knowledge of the facility and businesses involved?
After the fire was extinguished, there was much to do. While I can’t speak to the other units involved, Mentor’s post fire recovery program has been an ongoing process.
- The premises required inspection for structural damage and other safety concerns.
- The various pieces of training equipment needed to be inspected for integrity and safety, e.g. the fork lift, scissor lift, personal protective equipment such as harnesses, lanyards and lifelines and the trailer used for confined space extraction training.
- Equipment that was undamaged still needed deep cleaning to make it serviceable.
- An alternate training facility needed to be found until the regular space is once again usable.
Now, ten months later, we are hopeful to be able to occupy the restored space by early October.
This is a very basic summary of the actual and very alarming event that happened to our safety training company. Fortunately we can look upon it as a personal learning experience to share with all our clients. Nothing speaks louder than having lived it. If we can help others with our story, then perhaps it was worthwhile.
In the grand scheme of things and in deep gratitude, Mentor considers itself fortunate that this was an inconvenient but non-disastrous event.
Watch for next month’s Blog published in the second week of October
Sincerely,
Carola Mittag
Consultant and Editor for Mentor Safety Consultants Inc.