Text For Citation: 01 Item/Group: 001 Hazard: BURNS

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to burn hazards from radiant heat while manually charging the furnaces. (a)On May 28, 2004, an employee was preparing to manually charge furnace #2 with raw material while seated on a Hyster forklift that had been modified to operate as a charge buggy when the furnace erupted. Displaced molten Silicon metal and radiant heat generated by the eruption caused severe burns that resulted in the death of the employee. Furnace eruptions have occurred at this facility in the past. These eruptions are unpredictable and are likely to reoccur in the future. Manually charging the furnaces while there is a potential for eruption is an unacceptable risk to employee safety. Among others, one feasible and acceptable method to correct this hazard is to modify the furnaces, as other companies in this industry have done, so that the furnaces can be charged automatically. Automatic charging would eliminate the need for an employee to be near the furnace while it is charged with raw material. In the event of an eruption, the employees would not be exposed to the burn hazards associated with the flying molten material and the radiant heat.nt