Responsibilities - Fire Watch

An employee assigned to fire watch duty must be trained to understand both the site-specific hazards as well as hot work hazards for each task. Fire watch entails maintaining safe operating conditions during all hot work operations. If conditions become unsafe, the fire watch must be authorized to halt operations. The fire watch should be familiar with fire extinguisher locations and use as well as procedures for sounding the fire alarm.

The fire watch must be on duty for hot work that involves any of the following:

• Combustible material(s) closer than 35 feet to the area of operation
• Combustibles that are further than 35 feet away but are highly combustible
• Wall or floor openings within a 35 foot radius of the area of operation that may expose combustible material in nearby areas including concealed spaces in walls or flooring
• Combustible materials near the opposite of metal partitions, walls, ceilings, or roofs to that may ignite through heat conduction or radiation

The fire watch is responsible for extinguishing all fires within the capacity of the available equipment. If a fire is too large, the fire watch must sound the alarm.

To learn more about Hot Work visit our General Hot Work Online Training web page.