Heat Illness or Cold Stress Training?
- Heat Illness Prevention. The page you are on. Hot work indoors and outdoors: acclimatization, WBGT, water, rest, shade and heat illness first aid.
- Cold Stress. The winter course, covering frostbite, hypothermia, trench foot and cold weather work practices. View the Cold Stress
Crews working year round usually need both, timed to the season they are heading into.
How Do You Prevent Heat Illness on a Worksite?
There is no federal heat standard, so the course follows OSHA's heat guidance and the NIOSH recommendations that inspectors look for.
- Water, rest and shade. Provide cool drinking water, encourage about 8 ounces every 20 minutes, and add electrolyte drinks on long shifts.
- Ease new workers in. New workers should work about 20 percent of the normal duration on day one, building up gradually (OSHA's 20 percent rule).
- Watch returning workers. Workers coming back after an absence of a week or more need the same protections again for at least a week.
- Act on symptoms fast. Confusion, slurred speech or unconsciousness means heat stroke: cool the worker at once and call 911.
Employers still owe a workplace free of recognized serious hazards, including heat, under Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act.
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