Incident date: 2019-05-22
NAICS industry code: 238160

A crew was applying hot asphalt to a built-up roof. They were tearing off the old roof and applying layers of asphalt and roofing materials to build the roof up at several layers. Asphalt is heated on the ground and built up through a pipe, put into a pie boy and a low-profile mop cart (400 to 500 degrees F), and applied to the roof with a mop that spreads hot asphalt at the right thickness. Because the asphalt cools quickly, the crew had to lay it out in a grid on rolls of felt. The injured employee was dry-setting some felt while others were mopping. He was walking backwards and bent over, rolling out the felt. As he walked back to the cart, someone called out to him. He then fell over the tires and back onto the hot cart, rolled to the side to try and avoid the hot asphalt, but tipped over the cart. His inside forearm and outside forearm came into contact with hot asphalt, suffering third degree burns.

Hazard classification:
code_event: title: Contact with hot objects or substances
code_source: title: Roofing asphalt, roofing tar
code_nature: title: Third or fourth degree heat (thermal) burns
code_body: title: Forearm(s)
severity: moderate