Hot Work Toolbox Talk, But Make It 🔥 The Hot Work Safety Risks You're Not Addressing

In this episode we're picking the top hot work safety risks that we've encountered over our careers that can create the perfect storm for a fire event during hot work activities, with luck playing a major role in why some buildings are still standing.  Give this episode a listen, and see if your facility has any of these hot work process management risks:   

 “Top Failures in Hot Work Safety – Not Your Typical Toolbox Talk”

🔥 Overview:

In episode of Safe, Efficient, Profitable, hosts Joe and Jen of Allen Safety go beyond the basics of hot work training to uncover the top failures in hot work safety programs—the kind that can literally burn your facility down if left unaddressed. Forget the standard "check your extinguisher" talk—this is a real-world, experience-driven deep dive based on years of safety audits, incidents, and lessons learned on the ground.

This episode is a must-listen for safety professionals, plant managers, contractors, and fire watch personnel looking to prevent catastrophic fire risks during welding, cutting, and grinding operations.

🔥 Key Points Covered:

Fire Watch Confusion

Many Fire Watch personnel don’t understand where to stand, how long to stay, or how to follow the work if it moves.

Most training doesn’t address real-world logistics or site-specific protocols.

Undefined Hot Work Areas

Critical visibility issues arise when Fire Watch personnel are nowhere near the hot work.

Real examples include watching welding work 50+ feet away or in confined spaces—ineffective and dangerous.

Incomplete Permit Processes

Hot work permits are often pre-filled, not site-specific, or treated as blanket 8-hour approvals.

There’s a lack of accountability around evaluating new locations, travel paths, and potential hazards as work progresses.

Distance & Multiple Weld Zones

Welding that spans 200+ feet of conveyor systems or fencing requires multiple permits and Fire Watch assignments, not just one.

Permits need to consider clearance areas (35 feet around each weld), extinguisher placement, and actual work duration.

Shift Transitions & Breakdowns in Fire Watch Coverage

Contractor Liability Gaps

Confusion over who is liable—contractor vs. host site—especially when personnel change mid-project.

This opens the door for unapproved hand-offs, missed hazards, and untracked accountability.

The Root of It All: Lack of Planning

Most issues stem from a lack of project planning.

Pre-job assessments are rushed or overlooked, especially for multi-employer worksites.

Without the right number and quality of trained personnel, hazards slip through the cracks.

🔍 SEO Keywords & Phrases:

Hot work safety failures
Fire watch best practices
Welding permit compliance
Preventing fires during hot work
Hot work hazard assessment
Allen Safety podcast
Industrial fire prevention
Safety planning for contractors
Toolbox talk hot work
OSHA hot work permit
Real-world fire watch training

💡 Final Takeaway:
“Hot work safety is about way more than checking extinguishers—it’s about people, planning, positioning, and responsibility.”
If your team is unclear on any of those, it’s time to revisit your program.

🎯 For More Support:

Visit AllenSafety.com for onsite training and safety services.

Explore AllenSafetyCoaching.com for virtual coaching, resources, and free email support.

This episode is intended for educational purposes.  Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice.  It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back everybody.
This week we're talking abouthot work and this is not oh,
check your extinguishers hotwork training.
This is gonna be the topfailures that could contribute
to burning your location downthat you probably wanna avoid.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi, welcome back.
Welcome back here we areAllen's Safety YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
topic worker safety joe jen and just again want to
reach out and say hey guys,thanks, thanks for being part of
our community.
It's been a real ride.
So thank you for sticking withus in the early years and thanks
for still still believing in usand watching now.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
So these are top failures of hot work.
Uh, why did we pick this one?
We have been to locationsliterally a few weeks later
watched the building burn downbecause of somebody's hot work,
and it makes it but it was sadand then so we paid attention
over the years.
So this is not from last year.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
This like years of stuff that we're like these are
accumulation of, of many thingsthat we feel are contributing
factors, that you know it'spreventable.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
So the very first one is one of the events we had was
the contractor and or theemployee doing firewatch.
Doesn't really know where theyneed to be for the 30 minutes
where they're standing.
Is it.
Do I stand here?
Do I stand over there?
Because we'll sign them to bethe 30 minute firewatch or the

(01:25):
60 minute firewatch, but whatdoes that really mean?

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, just think about the logistics of this real
quick in your mind.
Most firewatch training iseither done in a classroom
setting, maybe a little bit doneoutside in terms of like if you
actually shoot off anextinguisher.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
otherwise it may be a virtual extinguisher situation
and I don't know at what pointwe're ever like hey, and here
correct next to this post I hadone a few months ago that had to
be 50 feet where they weredoing the hot work first was
standing there because the otherhot work was there well, how
many months are we reallytalking?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
how?
Many well did we do.
And we may have a saturdaywhere we're just going spot to
spot to spot to spot For hours.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
For hours.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
So how many fire watches is that?
That's correct?
Do they move with the person ordo they stay with?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
the person and do the 30 minutes.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
And you know what the hot work programs don't say,
don't say they're not clear.
You got to tell the personwhere to stand, when, how long
to stand there, that is whatwe're missing in the program and
that is what we're missing inthe training for the person
doing the welding, and that'swhat we're missing just overall
in the fire watch training.
We're not telling them thetechnical details on what to do

(02:34):
and where to go.
It goes beyond just here's howyou use an extinguisher.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Absolutely.
Another one is what is theactual hot work area?
Where is it?
Because I've seen fire watcheshere the hot work be way up
there or way over there.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I'm like yeah, they're welding like in the
ceiling and the person's on theground.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
That makes no sense.
That makes no sense gun?

Speaker 1 (02:57):
you can't, you can't even.
That's not even really lineaside.
You're just standing here andhoping the welder's like, hey,
it's on fire, can you?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
help, yeah, and then, as the person performing the
hot work, you got to look atwhat they're doing so say
they're in a confined space andthey're doing hot work.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was just going to say I'm thinking confined space.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Do you really want the fire watch jumping in, or
are you going to have adifferent policy for that?

Speaker 1 (03:18):
And I think that the intent of the permit is supposed
to kind of flush out some ofthose things.
They're not Right, the permitsaren't capturing it.
That's usually the method thatwe use to do kind of a pre-job
hazard assessment.
It's not catching the stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
All right, and another one is okay, so I've got
to fill out this permit.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm with you.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
And this project is going to take eight hours.
Yes, so I'm going to give youthis permit from my desk.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yes, so you're the supervisor.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
So somehow that permit just became an eight hour
document that lives on its own.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Well, that's what you did yesterday.
We're going to continue theproject today.
Here's the permit for today.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
And you're like but how did you evaluate the 30 foot
and 50 foot and extinguishers?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
There's no way again, it's where do they need to
stand?
How?
Many, should there be thatpermit all kind of I think under
the assumption for whateverreason I don't know why I was
when I first got into safetybefore I really knew what was
going on that there's only likeone fire watch, like one fire
watch per person welding, likeit's someone welding and then

(04:28):
there's a fire watch with them,it's's two people.
And that's not true.
That's not true necessarily.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Another one you have is footage.
So I'm going to be 200 feetaway, so it's a 30 minute fire
watch for 200 feet, or is it 30minute fire watch for this five
feet where we did the first one?
Because what happens is if Itravel, like you you talked
about earlier, with the footageof the 200 feet, because I'm
making sure they don't go in thewrong area, I'm not controlling

(04:56):
the other part now pins, youknow, think hog barns.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, they are drops below systems and I'm I'm
installing new equipment or youknow already not conveyors or
something I just really think ifyou had to go in and you were
going to overhaul and repairstuff, it could be huge distance
that that one welder can travelbecause they're not going to
stay there with their first weld.

(05:21):
That doesn't make any sense.
So they're covering a massivearea, you just so.
How many permits do you need?
Because that's what you got tobe asking, then you're saying
that you've got to also have a35 foot clearance around each
one of those welds andtheoretically, you're giving me
your permit from your office andI'm walking out there and it's

(05:41):
pre-signed, which obviously weall know is wrong.
We're not advocating.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Point of it is.
It's a risk, and we've seen it.
We've seen that happen.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
And so just how are you making sure the final weld,
that's 200 foot away, stillmeets the intent of the permit,
which is 35 foot clear?
All these things are in place.
We did the hazard analysis.
You know we're good about doingthat process and filling out
the permit for the first weld,but once you start getting
multiple welds, all that stufffalls off.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
And then the other one that's always weird to me is
we have a 10 minute break orwe're going home in 10 minutes,
so time time is interesting howthe fire watch can actually
change times.
So we have a 30 minute hourwatch, but we have a 10 minute
break.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Then 10 minutes you're leaving, but or we like
we assign multiple fire watchesand so they step in and take
your place, but they weren't onthe permit, so we're going to
add them real quick.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Hey can you come over here.
Yeah, we're leaving today.
We're a contractor.
Can the host now manage it Okay?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Can they take over it ?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
was your hot work, it was your people, it was your
everything, your liability.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, the plant didn't or the location didn't
sign off on the permit.
It's a contractor's supervisorthat signed off.
So why am I now adding mypeople to be the fire watch and
you're headed out, so that youdon't charge me overtime or
double?
Time or whatever.
It gets really weird.
Part of it is really planning.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right, that's the final one.
The final was to capture all ofthis, our solution is you got
to plan it, you got to look atwhat you're really doing.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Jobs go and don't do this that morning it's too late
right we have a bunch of videoson project day and managing and
hot work and hot work and andmaking sure that things go
smoothly come project day andworking with contractors.
This is something that, if youknow what's coming, try and
start working on this during theweek so that we have the right
number of people allocated andthe right set of eyes.

(07:34):
It's not just how many peoplelook at something, but it's the
right folks that reallyunderstand what's going on,
getting some eyes on it tomitigate those hazards.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Jen said in the hot work episode a few weeks ago no,
all the piece of paper reallyis is who's liable at the end of
the day.
Yeah, oh, if it's aboutliability, then have a.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, let's start playing, especially if it's
again multi employer work sites.
For sure, that's our, that'sour top failures of hot work.
So think about that, see if anyof those apply to you and let
us know in the comments if youthink we missed it.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
These are opinions.
These are opinions.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, these are our opinions, so this is just.
Obviously I can't capture themall.
This is 10 minutes becausewe're trying to make these
bite-sized lessons for you guystoo.
We know you don't have all day,so we try to just hit the top
ones.
If there's some that werebiggies that we missed, let us
know in the comments.
Otherwise, if you want us to doa side evaluation uh, some kind
of behavior-based safety auditevaluation I don't love the word
safety audit, that's kind ofwhat it is, but it's not um, you

(08:31):
can reach out Allen dash,safetycom If you want to have
some in-person services,projects, procedures, contractor
safety stuff, any of thosethings.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
We would love to travel to your location.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
We would love to do some in-person stuff with you
guys.
Otherwise, if in-persontraining, audits, project stuff
isn't in the budget this year,you can head over to
allensafetycoachingcom.
That's a great in-between andyou also get free email coaching
with us.
Yeah, so you can email Joe andI for free.
That's part of that coachingmembership, so you kind of get
some some support Also justwatch every one of the videos we

(09:03):
currently have out.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, you could do that.
Just sit down for a Saturdayafternoon and be like I think
I'll watch these.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, absolutely, and we know some folks.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
All right, have a good day.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Have a great week.
Everybody, take care.
Thank you for listening to Safe, efficient, profitable a worker
safety podcast.
If you're looking for morein-depth discussions or
step-by-step solutions on all ofthe different safety and
regulatory topics, please visitus at wwwallensafetycoachingcom
for web-based virtual coachingand training, or at
wwwallensafetycom to book ourteam for onsite services,

(09:41):
training sessions to ordermerchandise, to learn more about
our team and what services.
Thank you so much for yoursupport.
Thank you.