SCAFFOLDING BEST PRACTICE #26: Emergency Egress

The CSA Z797 Standard was one of the first national scaffolding standards to ever contemplate the requirements of Emergency Egress. In it, scaffolds of certain size and configurations require additional means of egress FOR THE SCAFFOLD OCCUPANTS for evacuation from fire, explosion, storm, fugitive emission, etc. HOWEVER, many access scaffolds (especially on construction sites) are purposely built to provide access/egress using stairs or ladders to various levels of the larger worksite. These scaffolds must have additional planning, design and assessment to ensure that they are sufficient in strength, size, capacity and location if required to be used for emergency egress.