Emergency response leader must assess on-site risks at call-outs

At emergency call-outs (utrykning), the response leader (utrykningsleder) is responsible for ensuring that risk conditions at the scene are also assessed.Arbeidstilsynet The new sentence reads «Ved utrykning har utrykningsleder ansvar for at risikoforholdene på stedet også vurderes»Arbeidstilsynet, and it extends the standing rule — businesses with smoke- or chemical-diving services must safeguard occupational health, the working environment and safety during both planning and execution — to the incident scene itself. For fire services and industrial fire-protection (industrivern) enterprises, this assigns the on-scene assessment expressly to whoever fills the utrykningsleder role.Arbeidstilsynet

The surrounding employer duties are restated at the same time. The employer shall ensure a fully sound working environment («Arbeidsgiver skal sørge for et fullt forsvarlig arbeidsmiljø»), and the working environment shall provide a basis for a health-promoting and meaningful work situation with full safety against physical and mental harmful effects. That wording tracks the statutory general requirement that the working environment in the business shall be fully sound («fullt forsvarlig») assessed singly and as a whole, with safety, health and working-environment standards developed in line with society. The previous sentence — that the employer is responsible for mapping, preventing and following up all conditions that can cause work-related injury or illness — no longer appears in that paragraph.

Risk assessment is named as the foundation of the work: «Kartlegging og risikovurdering er grunnlaget i dette arbeidet». What was «systematisk kartlegging og vurdering» is now «systematisk kartlegging og risikovurdering» of all conditions in the work that can lead to personal injury, health complaints or illness, plus systematic work to identify and assess the effect of measures that can reduce the risk. That matches the statutory systematic health, environment and safety work: the employer shall map hazards and problems and on that basis assess risk conditions in the business, draw up plans and implement measures to reduce risk. Businesses should therefore keep their written assessments current and check that the changed wording has not left procedures referring to the old sentence.

The rest of the framework is unchanged: smoke diving means operations in dense fire smoke, usually inside buildings, to save life, environment or material assets; chemical diving means operations in contaminated or toxic areas or areas with oxygen deficiency. The page still divides supervisory roles between Arbeidstilsynet for the working-environment rules, DSB as national fire authority, and NSO for industrial-protection enterprises.

In practice, the operational change is the on-scene one. Whoever fills the utrykningsleder role at a call-out should confirm that risk conditions at the scene (risikoforholdene på stedet) have been assessed before divers are committedArbeidstilsynet, and keep it consistent with the systematic safety work.

Legal basis: systematic health, environment and safety work under arbeidsmiljølova § 3-1 and the general working-environment requirements in § 4-1.