Near Miss: Hot Oil Spray
This week's near miss report again shows how important PPE is:
Members of the department were working to extinguish a fully involved front-end loader fire. While operating in close proximity of the vehicle an oil line busted spraying 2 firefighters with hot oil. Both firefighters were in full turnout gear including SCBA. The oil sprayed both firefighters from head to toe. All PPE was grossly contaminated with oil. Had either of the 2 firefighters been missing any PPE they likely would have sustained at least minor burns but it likely would have been severe.
This will be a wake up call for the firefighters on our department. We routinely have hay bale fires. May times, there are several tons of hay on fire. Typically, we utilize the farmer/rancher and his tractor equipped with a front end loader. They use the tractor to spread the hay bales out so that they can be extinguished in a timely fashion. This operation involves exposing the front end loader to high temperatures. To mitigate damage to the tractor, we usually station a firefighter with a 1.5 inch line near the tractor to cool the front end loader.
Most of the time, full PPE is worn, but I can't say that this happens all of the time. We will certainly talk about it at an upcoming training night.
