Q&A: Preventing Arc Flash and Shock Hazards
A safety expert sits down with OH&S magazine to discuss why implementing proper risk assessment goes hand-in-glove with having the right PPE.
- By David Kopf
- Jun 01, 2023
Arc flash and shock hazards continue to take their toll. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), five to 10 arc flash incidents occur every day, and more than 2,000 people are treated annually in burn centers with arc flash injuries.
One electrical safety expert who regularly addresses this subject is Zarheer Jooma, P.E., IEEE (SM’17), an electrical engineer with e-Hazard (e-hazard.com), which provides arc flash and electrical safety training, shares insights into adequate risk assessment, the kinds of necessary PPE, common human errors that often lead to arch flash incidents, and key elements that go into effective electrical safety training programs. Jooma recently sat down with Occupational Health & Safety magazine to discuss why companies need to ensure they are implementing the proper risk assessment, as well as the right PPE.
OH&S magazine: What goes into adequate risk assessment when it comes to judging the possibility of an arc flash incident?
Jooma: That’s a great place to start off this discussion. One of the governing standards, which is the 2023 version of NFPA 70E, actually breaks risk assessment up into three steps. They are, firstly, identifying the hazards; then, moving on to the proper risk assessment; and then finally coming up with risk mitigation strategies. You know, we always talk about an arc flash risk assessment, but in reality, what we are chasing here is the electrical safety risk assessment.
So, when we talk about electrical safety, we think about the electrical hazards, and there are only two of them: There’s electrical arc flash and there’s electrical shock. And then people ask me, oh, what about the blast on the arc flash? Well, arc flash itself is broken up into two areas: One is the thermal component of it, and the other is a pressure component of it. But without getting into too much detail, the first thing that I would say is you have to do a site visit or a site assessment. You cannot just do an office-based assessment of what’s going on. … In all of my learnings, I always see that the people who are injured the most are the people who do a mental risk assessment.
OH&S magazine: Really? Why is that?
Jooma: Firstly, let me just say I don’t have a problem with somebody just thinking out all of the risks onsite while they are there. But the problem with human beings is that we tend to overestimate our ability. You don’t really know what you don’t know. I’m not going to lean towards either one of these because to me, the correct thing to do is to first go out to site and identify the equipment that you are going to be working on. You need to ask, what am I working on? What are the non-electrical hazards that I’m exposed to? What is my core focus? And while focusing on that, is there not something else that’s going to hurt me?
This article originally appeared in the June 1, 2023 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.