Fall Prevention and Protection has been in news a lot lately. The safety news, at least.

Fall prevention always generates a lot of discussions because falls are the leading cause of deaths in construction. In 2015, for example, there were 350 fatal falls to a lower level out of 937 construction fatalities. And fatalities are actually increasing in the last few years, not decreasing.

In addition, OSHA just held (May 8-12) their National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Falls in Construction.

And of course, OSHA just recently created a new final rule to update the General Industry Walking-Working Surfaces and Fall Protection Standards. We wrote an earlier article discussing how to update fall prevention training in relation to this new OSHA final rule.

Plus, I just attended a full-day fall prevention training course offered by the Pacific Northwest OSHA Education Center (this is part of the University of Washington’s School of Public Health Department of Environmental Occupational & Health Safety). The class was led by the excellent instructor Harvey McGill, special “guest star” Craig Hamelund of Oregon OSHA, an all-star panel including David Douglas of Fred Shearer & Sons, Doug Pettyjohn of SAIF Homebuilders Group, and Travis Stone of Associated General Contractors (AGC), plus a good-sized audience of industry professionals looking to learn more about fall prevention/protection and how to keep workers safe.

The class was excellent, I learned a lot about fall prevention and protection, and I left inspired to try to do good work in the safety industry. Not a bad recommendation, huh?

The article below will cover some of what we learned.

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Hopefully, you’ll never be in a fire and so you’ll never need to know how to use a fire extinguisher.

But of course, fires DO happen. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, in a recent year there were nearly 1,300,000 fires in the US, and they caused nearly 3,300 deaths, 16,000 injuries, and nearly $12 billion in losses/damages.

So we should all hope we’re never involved in a fire, but we should also learn how to use a fire extinguisher just in case.

To help, we’ve put together this fire extinguisher guide, which presents the proper way to select and use a fire extinguisher, and also gives you some guidance about when you should use a fire extinguisher instead of simply getting to safety and when you should evacuate if the fire gets too big despite your efforts.

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We can all agree that it’s a good idea to have fire extinguishers at work (and the home, too). In fact, OSHA has rules about that (though, of course, with some exceptions).

But not all fire extinguishers are the same. There are different types.

Which leads us to the all-important question: If you ARE going to buy fire extinguishers, what type should you buy?

We’ll explain the different types of fire extinguishers in this article to you and give you the information you need to understand the different fire extinguisher types and select the right extinguishers for your workplace.

We’ll tell you what you need to know about fire extinguisher types and how to select the right ones for your workplace in this article, but you may also want to do some self study to learn what fire really is, how it works, and how it’s put out. Some people talk about this in terms of something call the fire triangle, and some refer to the fire tetrahedron. Read more about the fire triangle and fire tetrahedron here.

Before you begin, you may also be curious about how a fire extinguisher works. Here’s an explanation taken from a short sample of our Fire Extinguisher Safety online training course.

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While we most often associate workplace injuries with construction, drilling, mining, or manufacturing jobs, injuries can occur even if you spend most your workday sitting at a desk. Therefore, office safety training is vital to creating a safer workplace. A clutter-free office environment and first-aid training can go a long way in ensuring occupational safety at the office.

We’ll give you some tips for keeping safe in the article below.

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As you may know, OSHA recently finalized a rule to update their Walking-Working Surfaces standard and their Fall Protection standard. In particular, the new rule updates standards addressing slip, trip, and fall hazards in Subpart D and adds additional requirements for personal fall protection systems in Subpart I.

In this article, we’ll point out some of the major changes that affect fall prevention and protection training. We’ll look at other consequences of the changes in future articles as well. In doing so, we’ll demonstrate how we’ve changed our own online Fall Prevention and Protection course to match the new final rule.

In addition to all that, we’ll give you some additional useful information too, such as what the purpose of the new rule is, how employers will benefit from it, and information about effective dates.

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Wondering what the OSHA fire extinguisher training requirements are for employers? If so, then this is the article you’ve been waiting for.

We’ll tell you what employers have to give fire extinguisher training to employees, why, and what kind of fire extinguisher safety training, if any, they have to provide.

So if you’re ready to learn more about all things related to OSHA fire extinguisher training, read on.

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We’ve published another in a series of articles related to safety training in the May issue of Professional Safety, the official magazine of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).

Also, hot tip–we hear they’re changing their name to the American Society of Safety Professionals, or ASSP. There’s a new logo coming, too. More on that when we find out more.

The series of articles provides tips for better safety training, and takes as a starting point some key parts of the ASSE/ANSI Z490.1 standard on Effective Safety Training. In this particular article, we focused on how to develop learner-centric safety training. Which is a fancy way of saying how to develop safety training that focuses on the learning needs of the learner. Seems logical when you put it that way, no?

We encourage you to check out the ASSE, their Professional Safety magazine, and of course their ANSI Z490.1 standard for Effective Safety Training. Also, be aware that ANSI and ASSE are beginning the process of creating ANSI Z490.2, which will deal with online or “virtual” safety training. We’re on the committee to create that standard and you can read more about that here.

Finally, we’ve got some safety-training-related freebies for you. To learn more about developing learner-centric safety training, download our free Guide to Effective Safety Training at the bottom of this article. It’s based on Z490.1, by clicking the large download button at the bottom of this article.

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In some cases, OSHA requires employers to have fire extinguishers at work, and in other cases, employers will choose to provide fire extinguishers. In either scenario, if a company will place portable fire extinguishers in the workplace, it’s important to know OSHA requirements covering mounting fire extinguishers and fire extinguisher placement as well as as OSHA fire extinguisher signage requirements.

We’ll cover each of those three issues–fire extinguisher mounting height, fire extinguisher placement, and fire extinguisher signage requirements–in this article.

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It’s the mobile age, as everyone knows. Not that long ago Apple created the iPhone and now it seems like we do everything on our smart phones or on tablets like the iPad.

How many things do you do with your smart phone these days? Probably a lot, right?

Assuming the answer is yes, doesn’t it make sense to consider mobile safety training at work?

In this article, we explain three simple ways to use mobile safety training apps to improve your overall safety training program.

You might also want to look at our collection of mobile safety training apps on our main webpage, or our 9 Great Uses for Mobile Training Apps article.

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Note: This article has been updated since the original publication to provide additional details.

As you may already know, I’m part of a committee creating an ANSI/ASSE national standard on “virtual” safety training (that means the same thing as “online” safety training).

I’ve been writing a little series of articles to keep you up to date on the progress of this standard and also just to provide a window into how a national standard is created (this is my first time doing it and I was curious myself).

I wrote an earlier article that explains Z490.2 is in creation and explaining some base-level details, such as what is its relation to Z490.1.

In this article, we’re going to give a little peek behind the curtain of what’s been going on since I joined the committee, at least at a high level.

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